On the Larry Mantle Show on KPCC, Carly Fiorina had this to say:

I believe that life begins at conception.  I would certainly that there are exceptions for the health of the mother.  I support stem-cell research.  But let me just say that on these very difficult social issues, I recognize that not everyone shares my views.  I also recognize that these social issues are not whats on the table today.

Not sure what to say to this other than these two words: Stupak Amendment.

Rarely do you see such an epic takedown from the left in a dead trees major newspaper. Sure, sometimes you see something on the paper’s blog, and you get the dissembling manifestos from the right. But, the combination of a progressive perspective and actual readers? Well, that’s a rare one.

But, in today’s column entitled “Carly Fiorina’s Senate campaign an uninspiring product launch” in the LA Times, Michael Hiltzik does just that. Let’s start with the broad stuff.

So here’s the tally thus far on Fiorina the candidate: Business celebrity with an equivocal record, cancer survivor with a secure employer-sponsored health plan, “problem-solving” candidate spouting ancient Republican nostrums. I can hardly contain my excitement.

At one point, I thought Hiltzik was even eavesdropping on my gchats during her launch event.  During a segment where she called for bills to be on the internet, specifically pointing to the health care bill, I said to my friend who was also watching, “well, maybe she can’t steer her HP windows computer over to thomas.loc.gov.” Because, you know, if she had, she would find on the home page of that site, a list of the major health care bills pending right now. I took a peek at the main house bill right here. It even has these things called hyperlinks to let you move around the bill easily.

Hiltzik has a similar takedown of her whole transparency argument. He then moves on to health care, where her “big idea” is pretty much the health insurance lobby’s wet dream:

More disturbing is her advocacy of allowing insurers to sell policies across state lines. This is a “reform” the insurance industry has been after for years, because it would allow them to evade the more stringent regulations of some states by selling all their policies out of states with hands-off regulators.

For a clue to how this works, notice how credit card companies issue their cards from banks in places like South Dakota and Nevada, which have no usury limits, rather than, say, California, where the cap is 10%. But even Californians can’t sign up for a card issued in California, so we’re stuck with the South Dakota sky’s-the-limit variety.

If this is what Carly Fiorina is going to bring, perhaps she will be able to get some big checks from Blue Cross. However, she won’t be able to get the votes from Californians that one assumes are her ultimate goal.

Chuck DeVore is still an unknown to most Californians, and Carly Fiorina is only slightly more recognized.  However, it seems that amongst Republican right-wingers, Chuck DeVore might as well be Madonna; they just love him.

Tea party activists are also lining up behind challengers to GOP establishment-backed Senate candidates in Colorado and Connecticut. In California, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina – like Crist, another National Republican Senatorial Committee-favored Senate contender – is the target of tea party animus in her primary against conservative state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore.

“My impression is that the support among tea partyers for DeVore is high,” said Mark Meckler, a California-based organizer for Tea Party Patriots. “I hear nothing but praise for the guy.”  (Politico)

Now, you have to separate the two tea party factions. You have the faction that is run by the rich and powerful, that one is led by my former congressman, Dick Armey.  But however they are bringing these folks, there is another part of it, that is pretty much your old Republican grassroots. Not much has really changed here, but some of the branding.  So, the right-wingers are all abuzz with the hunk of burning electability that is Chuck DeVore.  In case you don’t know much about him, perhaps we should trust those who know him best, the right-wingers: He’s a far right ideologue. Surely that will sway California’s center-left electorate.

Meanwhile over in Camp Carlyfornia, we have Carly’s turn to get beaten up with the facts that she isn’t particularly interested in voting.  Fiorina has a stunning 5 for 18 record since 2000.  Clearly, she believes in civic engagement.

But don’t worry, she’s found an issue that she can use to curry favor with the base: West Central Valley water. Carlyfornia’s op-ed in the Fresno Bee takes the Sean Hannity line, you know the one where farmers rool and fisherman drool! Boooooo salmon!!

The logic of the editorial is truly stunning though.

Common sense would tell us that it shouldn’t take an act of Congress to put the urgent needs of people ahead of a small fish. Apparently it does. … Congress tried to act the week before my visit to the Valley, however, Senate Democrats — led by Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer — defeated a California water amendment offered by South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. This amendment should be reconsidered and approved. (FresnoBee)

The DeMint (R-South Carolina) amendment would have banned water diversions from farms in the state of California for the purposes of saving endangered species. Never mind that even Sen. Feinstein thinks this is none of his business, the fact is that ignoring one fish isn’t really the way to solve important problems. It is this kind of short-term thinking: use whatever resources we have at hand, that has led us to the dangerous situation with climate change.

I recommend that Carlyfornia take a look at the story of DDT in Borneo.  You soon begin to realize that nature is a delicate balance. You can’t simply take out one player and expect the house of cards to remain in place.  In the case of Borneo, DDT was used to reduce malaria, but ended up creating a series of local extinctions that threatened the way of life of Borneo. In the end, the WHO had to airlift cats into the island to save the ecosystem and the way of life for real human beings there.

But, what would a CEO really need to know about systemic analysis. I mean, the Compaq deal went great, right?

Field continues its data dump with the poll numbers for the Senate race (PDF).  While just skating the magical “50% line” Senator Boxer is doing pretty well at this point:

When Boxer is paired against the two GOP U.S. Senate hopefuls, the incumbent holds early

Candidate	Fav	Unfav	No Opinion
Boxer	48	39	13
Fiorina	12	16	72
DeVore	9	9	82

double-digit leads over her two lesser-known opponents in general election match-ups.  Against Fiorina, Boxer’s lead is 49% to 35%.  When she is paired against DeVore her lead is 50% to 33%.

Senator Boxer has a huge advantage in name ID, but it is very heartening to see that despite the constant right-wing attacks against her, she is still a very solid +9 on the favorability scores.  So few have heard of Fiorina and DeVore that the numbers aren’t hugely significant right now. However, I did find it interesting that more Democrats than Republicans had an opinion of Fiorina.

But in the Republican battle, these numbers must be insanely frustrating for Carly Fiorina.  She was supposed to cruise to the nomination, but she is tied (21-20) with Chuck DeVore, a right-wing Assemblyman without a ton of money.  You have to wonder, if she doesn’t bounce back from her bad month or so that she had, will she really want to get involved in this mess.  Carlyfornia Dreamin’ was such a clear disaster, will she really want to sink much of her own money into the race, and will people really give her any money if she doesn’t sink some of her ill-gotten HP gains into it? It’s really something of a vicious feedback loop for Carly now.

Meanwhile, Senator Boxer is losing some of her base enthusiasm. A health care and/or climate change win would do worlds of good for her amongst the Democratic base. Although perhaps some better language on cap and trade wouldn’t hurt either.

The DSCC has put out a little web video with Carly Fiorina “in her own words.”

So, long story short, she ran HP into the ground and now wants to bring that business acumen to the Senate.

Any takers? Any takers?

No, I didn’t think so.

It’s almost too easy to attack Carly Fiorina. I mean, what with the 19th Worst American CEO of All-Time Award hanging over her head and all, it’s not even that much fun.

But, leave it to iCarly to ensure that we simply cannot stop talking about her.  Her campaign is fizzling even before it officially launches.  Over at righty blog RedState, they have word that Fiorina will not self-fund her campaign one iota.

The takeaway here? Carly Fiorina will not self-fund. Actually, let me give that the all-caps extravaganza it deserves:

Carly Fiorina WILL NOT SELF-FUND.

Given that the NRSC and Senator Cornyn, in public and private, have touted Carly’s self-funding potential as the major reason for supporting her – despite her record of political non-participation, despite her emerging Iran scandal, despite her lackluster corporate record, and despite her series of foot-in-mouth moments – this is a big deal. We have Cornyn and the NRSC telling donors and big names, “Screw Chuck DeVore and the conservative grassroots, we want Carly’s cash,” and we have Carly telling potential hires, “My cash ain’t coming.”

How inept can the NRSC be? History has yet to record a full answer. And that’s not even the whole story.

And given the extraordinary level of effort that the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) has put into recruiting Fiorina to run, this is rather embarrassing. She cannot hire a campaign manager because anybody worth a lick realizes that Fiorina has no shot without at least some level of self-funding.

She did hire a fundraiser, Marty Wilson, who was very briefly with Poizner’s campaign, and did most of the raising for the Governor’s campaigns. However, it appears that he is finding the going quite tough with a candidate that doesn’t really have the base with her and isn’t prepared to self-fund.

This campaign could, quite possibly, be the most hilarious campaign since oh, hmmm, well, we really do have too many funny campaigns in this state, don’t we? Anyway, it’s gonna be hilarious!

There have been successful and unsuccesful campaign launches on display over the past few years.  You had Obama’s enormously successful speech in Springfield. On the minus side, well, let’s not rub it in.

Anyway, Carly Fiorina officially launched her exploratory campaign yesterday, and let’s just say that she was met with a slew of questions you generally don’t want to get at the start of the campaign. Let’s start with Carla Marinucci’s Citizenship Test:

Critics suggest maybe not, considering that Fiorina, 54, who has a spotty voting California voting record, never cast a ballot in two other states where she lived previously, according to public records.

Officials in Morris County, N.J., said records show she registered to vote there in 1997 but did not vote in a single election and was dropped from the voter rolls in 2005 as inactive.

Before that, Fiorina lived in Montgomery County, Md., where the registrar’s office said they reviewed state databases and found no listing of Fiorina’s voter registration.

Fiorina strongly disputes the voting records as “just wrong,” her spokeswoman, Beth Miller, said. Miller said Tuesday that Fiorina has no records to prove her past voting record and has acknowledged her failure to vote in some elections. But while “she didn’t vote all the time … she did vote,” the spokeswoman added. (SF Chronicle 8/19/09)

As I said, questions from a major newspaper reporter about whether you voted in the past are really not the way you want to start a campaign. From the word go, her spokesman is on the defensive about just exactly why she wants to win this gig.  After all, this really goes to the heart of the race. If you really care so much about the future of the nation, why not bother to at least vote?

And over at the LA Times, the quick blurb about her candidacy was finished with the following:

Her personal wealth would make Fiorina a heavy favorite for the Republican nomination. But she would have a tough fight to unseat Boxer, a Democrat seeking a fourth term. And Fiorina is opposed to abortion, which puts her at odds with most California voters.

Fiorina was fired from Hewlett-Packard after a rocky tenure. (LA Times 8/19/09)

Ouch. Now, if you were starting off a campaign, and that’s the close of the story on you, basically calling you a failure, you’d have to consider that a flop. Poor Carly.

I’d call that a resounding “wah-wha.” (P.s. I love the internet. I found the sound from Super Mario brothers in like 4 seconds.)

Carly Fiorina is a noted failure in such fields as business, citizenship  and spying. According to Shane Goldmacher, she’s now going to give politics the ol’ college try and has formed an exploratory committee for the 2010 Senate campaign against Barbara Boxer.

While one poll had Fiorina as close as 4 points, it seems to be the outlier as the bulk of the polling shows Boxer with a double digit lead. The most recent poll, a Daily Kos/R2K poll has Boxer up 52-31.

That is not to say that this will be an easy fight for Sen. Boxer, as Fiorina can come at her with wads of self-infused cash. So, she will still need plenty of support. And plus, Fiorina has a ton of experience in planting bugs and tapping phones. So, we’ll have to use the super decoder rings to talk about the campaign amongst us Democrats.

You can find Sen. Boxer on the Calitics ActBlue Page.

UPDATE: The SJ Merc has a story on the race. It's more blather about how Fiorina is going to give a tough race.  But for another perspective, check out Josh Treviño's tweets. Treviño, a conservative blogger and strategist, is a huuuuge Chuck DeVore fan, and seems rather pissed that Sen. Cornyn and the NRSC pushed Fiorina into the race.  My favorite tweet:  

This always bears repeating: Carly Fiorina was the only person fired by the ’08 McCain campaign for incompetence. Think about that.9 minutes ago from TweetDeck

Someone needs to talk to Chuck.

If you’ve been watching your TV over the past few months, you’ve undoubtedly seen the rotoscoped ads (edited based on user input) from Charles Schwab that feature that tagline Talk to Chuck..  When you visit the website, you should notice the emblem at the lower right corner: a square “talk bubble” with “talk to Chuck” inside it.  Notice the style and font.

Now go over and have a gander at the website of self-styled conservative Republican (why anyone would call themselves that these days is beyond me) Chuck Devore, who is challenging Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat in 2010.

Scroll down.  Notice the “talk to Chuck” with the square talk bubbles and a very similar block font?  Definitely not coincidental.  And IANAL, but does this constitute some sort of infringement of intellectual property rights?  After all, if I were a brokerage, I wouldn’t want to be associated with a political candidate on either end of the spectrum.  Then again, if I were a political candidate on either end of the spectrum, I wouldn’t want to willingly associate myself with a brokerage house.  But then again, I’m not Chuck Devore.