Today is going to be a big day for Carly Fiorina. The former Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett Packard from 1999 through 2005 will make it official that she is a candidate for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate. Her goal is to retire the ultra-liberal and ineffective incumbent, Barbara Boxer, next November.
As I like to say here on the FlashReport, we are "fair and biased" — and so I don’t mind laying out for all that there is no one that I can think of in the United States who combines the qualities of liberalism and shrillness into an all-together nauseating toxic cocktail of a politician.
In advance of her official announcement today, I had a chance to sit down with Fiorina. While normally I would try to release a lengthy interview in more digestible segments, in order to help FR readers assess this new entrant into the U.S. Senate race I have decided to print a transcript of the entire interview, which runs a little long (it represents about a half-hour of actual chat time). The topics are varied and I think you will enjoy reading it.
I found Fiorina to be very thoughtful and engaging — it’s not hard to see how she has done well in the business arena. These personality traits will translate well into her foray into the "high contact sport" of politics. One question I did not ask Fiorina is whether she will be "investing" a portion of her own considerable wealth into her candidacy (I forgot!). But this is just a first sit down and I’m sure we’ll have more opportunities as we catch up with her on the campaign trail.
Fiorina enters the campaign for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate with three major challenges. The first is her past — most specifically the abrupt end of her tenure at HP (she was "let go" is the term of art we will use — read it here). The second is her health — Fiorina has spent the better part of the last year battling breast cancer, which is now in remission and God-willing it is all behind her now. Finally, she is not running uncontested for the GOP nomination — already occupying a significant presence in the Republican primary is popular third-term Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who has been actively campaigning for well over a year now.
Chuck DeVore has an impressive array of endorsements, and a history of party involvement that makes almost anyone else look like an amateur. Just yesterday DeVore was endorsed by conservative iconic U.S. Senator Jim DeMint and also the Senate Conservative Fund. Very popular with grassroots Republicans, DeVore’s big challenge in his race will be to try and build enough campaign cash to afford a substantial statewide voter contact program for the primary. You can read more about DeVore’s candidacy on his campaign website.
If you are reading this before 10am, Fiorina’s "big announcement" will be broadcast live on her campaign website here (I would imagine it will be archived after the fact if you want to watch it later).
Below is my interview with Carly Fiorina. I did not ask her biographical questions, so you may want to peruse her biography when he campaign site is up and running (it was not at 8am when this was published out). She has published an opinion piece today in the Orange County Register which can be found here. On the FR blog, we’ve posted up Fiorina’s professional campaign team, so you can check that out.
FLASHREPORT PUBLISHER JON FLEISCHMAN INTERVIEWS CARLY FIORINA
FLASH: I thought I would start out by asking you kind of a pretty basic question, which is what do you see as the proper role of government, and more specifically, what do you see as the role of the federal government in America today?
FIORINA: I think the first, and most important role of the federal government is to protect its citizens and to secure our national defense. Beyond that, however, I think the role of the federal government is to spend taxpayers money wisely, and in most cases, spend as little as possible, and certainly less than what we’re spending today. And third, I think the role of the government is to do the right things, and sometimes that means doing nothing, to make sure that our economy is vibrant and strong.
FLASH: I guess as a follow up, I would ask you whether or not you think the federal government today is in the scope that was envisioned by our founders, or whether you think that it’s gotten bigger than that, and if so, what would your comment be?
FIORINA: Well, our federal government is clearly much larger, much more expensive and much more complex than our founders ever envisioned. The truth is, the federal government is now too complex for anybody to ever understand. And yet, current course and speed, the federal government will just continue to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And that’s why I think it’s so important that one of the first things that I would do is make sure that people know how their money is being spent, and it means putting budgets online, putting bills online.
And secondly, transparency tends to lead to accountability. I think the American taxpayers, and California taxpayers in particular, would be appalled to know how their money is actually being spent. And it also means that we have to be aggressive about reducing the size of government. It’s good, in and of itself, to make it smaller, not just because the federal government is engaged in a bunch of stuff they shouldn’t be involved in, but also because they’re taking more and more of our money to do it.
FLASH: Okay, and maybe you can clarify for me, because I think I read that you were a supporter of the bail-out of Wall Street, and I thought you could walk me through, consistent with your philosophy of the size of the federal government, if you supported that, and why you supported it so we can just kind of get it out on the record.
FIORINA So I did not support it. I did not support the economic stimulus, as well. Specifically, with regard to the Wall Street bail-out, what I have said for some time is that if we were going to bail out Wall Street, we needed to make sure that taxpayer money was used to actually solve the credit crisis. And to date, it has not been. So we have all this taxpayer money tied up in making Wall Street’s balance street stronger, and yet still, access to credit is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for small businesses who are the life blood of the economy. Access to credit for consumers is still incredibly tight. There is a looming problem with commercial real estate that will come onto the table probably next year. So what we’ve done is we’ve helped the banks, but we haven’t helped America.
With regard to the economic stimulus package, all that stimulus package did – once again, way too much taxpayer money – was to stimulate jobs temporarily, and even that impact was less than people claimed it would be, as we now see through the unemployment reports. It didn’t do anything to deliver credit into the marketplace. It didn’t do anything to help Americans get lasting jobs, which is what ultimately will drive consumption. So it was a lot of money spent in a pretty ineffective way.
FLASH: I guess it begs the question, had you been a U.S. Senator at the time, what would you have advocated that the federal government do in an effort to help America get out of a recession?
FIORINA: I would have advocated that the federal government focus on reducing spending, lowering taxes, and making it easier for small businesses to form, to grow, to hire, to prosper, and there are a variety of specific policies. There are tax credits that would help. There are tax credits for, for example, investment in technology or capital equipment. There are a whole host of things that can make it easier, changing depreciation schedules, etc.
But the federal government, in tough economic times, should focus on first getting its own house in order and cutting its own spending; second, making sure that it is doing the things necessary to help people get work through real job creation, not the kind of temporary stimulus that we saw; and third, being very prudent about how we spend money and asking for less of American taxpayer money in the process.
FLASH: You mentioned the “T” word, taxes. We always ask a question of candidates that are running for office who say that taxes are too high, ‘Would you be willing to sign the Americans for Tax Reform pledge to oppose any new tax increases in Washington?’.
FIORINA: I would. I’m a fiscal conservative. I don’t think raising taxes is the solution. I will sign such a pledge. I believe that the solution right now is to reduce the level of federal government spending, and indeed, there is, today, well-documented and well agreed upon fraud, waste and abuse in the federal budget worth about $800 billion dollars. So there’s plenty of opportunity to save money.
FLASH: By the way, within about five minutes of this interview getting published, Grover Norquist will invariably email or fax you the pledge, so you won’t have to worry about where to find it. Let’s talk about the sanctity of life issue because people are characterizing your position one way and characterizing it another way, and I figure you could take a minute and walk our readers through where you stand on this issue.
FIORINA: Okay. I believe that life begins at conception and I am personally pro-life, except, of course, in the case of rape or incest or health of the mother. In terms of government policy, I believe we need to do what we can to reduce the number of abortions and I think we need to provide alternatives to women to abortion, such as, for example, making adoption more accessible.
FLASH: Would you say it’s fair to say that you oppose taxpayer money being used to fund abortion procedures?
FIORINA: Absolutely. I oppose the use of federal funding for abortion.
FLASH: I guess you gave a speech a few days ago, and Chuck DeVore has been having a field day trying to make it sound like you’re going to crack down on freedom of expression on the internet. So I thought I would take the opportunity to at least give you a chance to kind of clarify or make it clear what your position is relative to internet regulation.
FIORINA: I do not favor more regulation or taxes on the internet. Less regulation is always better than more. What I was clearly discussing at the time at the Web 2.0 Conference was the need to address, by passing laws, crimes that are committed on the internet, and most of the crimes committed on the internet are against women and children. Internet pornography and sex trafficking is a very serious issue and it can not continue in the same reckless and criminal way as it’s currently operating. I think all the way back to your first question, the key responsibility of government is to protect its people, especially children, and I think that responsibility applies online just as much as it does in the physical world.
FLASH: Let’s talk for a moment about the issue of voting records. We all have obviously seen a lot in the news about Meg Whitman’s record, and your hometown paper up in San Jose had an article talking about your voting record. Would you like to share anything with our readers about the fact that you’ve missed some key votes over a period of time?
FIORINA: It’s wrong not to vote. I should have voted. There are no excuses I’m going to make for it. And it’s particularly wrong when there are millions of Californians who do the right thing and basically vote, and I appreciate them for their commitment to democracy and their exercising of their duty. The truth is, I felt, for a long time, disconnected from government and politics, and to be honest, didn’t really think my vote mattered very much. And it was probably because I didn’t have a direct line of sight from my vote to a result, and I think part of that was – you know, for a long time, elected officials have operated with very little transparency and voters had very little way to get information about their government. So elected officials spent a lot of time trying to get elected every term.
But of course, technology now can change that. It’s empowering voters and requiring politicians to do more than just win every year, and that’s all for the good. I think technology has already, and will continue to, enfranchise more voters. I really became personally engaged more with government and policy-making through my career in business, as it became clear to me that politics and government absolutely change the nature of the various businesses that I was engaged in.
Then, more recently, with my experiences over the last several years in various advisory roles in Washington, I’ve come to understand in a very real way that every decision that the U.S. Senate makes impacts every family and every business in America.
And that’s really why I’m running for the Senate. I think the people of California deserve better representation than Barbara Boxer, and I think it’s time for the kind of experience that I can bring to the job.
FLASH: When I read about this race and your potential candidacy in newspapers, a lot of reporters like to – they’ve decided that you’re moderate. That’s the phrase they use to describe you in a lot of articles. Do you consider yourself to be moderate? And if so, at least in the spectrum of Republicanism, what are issues that you would consider yourself to be more moderate on? I guess that’s the question. It’s kind of an odd way to phrase it.
FIORINA: Well, you know, Jon, I’ve been called all sorts of things, so I prefer to just tell you what I am. I am a fiscal conservative. I hold conservative values. The things that matter to me in this race and in my life are what is it that I can do as a U.S. Senator to help create more opportunities and more jobs for the people of California, and what is it that I can do to make sure that they are taxed less, that government becomes smaller and that government becomes more transparent and more accountable about how it is that taxpayers’ money is spent.
FLASH: Obviously, before you get to take on Barbara Boxer, there’s the matter of winning the Republican nomination. Obviously, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has been running for some time. How would you like to characterize what’s different between you and Chuck DeVore, what you bring to the table that he doesn’t? How would you draw a contrast between the two of you to people reading this interview?
FIORINA: Yeah. I bring a lifetime of experience in what it means to have a job, build jobs, whether it was starting out as a Kelly Girl temporary secretary or whether it is building jobs through a long business career. I have spent enough time in advisory roles in Washington to have many friends and colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and so I can hit the ground running, and I am a viable candidate in the State of California who can beat Barbara Boxer.
FLASH: I don’t know how familiar you are with your own giving history both to Republicans and/or Democrats, but have you ever written checks to Democrats in concert with your HP duties or whatever?
FIORINA: I haven’t given money to Democratic candidates.
FLASH: Here’s your big softball. If you had to give me kind of a top few things that Barbara Boxer has done that are the most egregious, which are reasons why she should not be a U.S. Senator for California anymore, what would some of those be?
FIORINA: Let’s start with the fact that she hasn’t done anything. She’s only passed three pieces of legislation in eighteen years; naming a river, naming a courthouse, and bringing some federal dollars back for seismic retrofit in California. The last was certainly worthwhile, but I think one piece of work in eighteen years is not a very good track record.
Second, she has consistently voted against those things that help create jobs. She’s voted against every free trade agreement that’s ever come to the floor of the U.S. Senate. She has refused to life her hand to turn the water back on in the San Joaquin Valley. She is a job killer.
And finally, she has consistently voted with the unions who, as we know, are creating all kinds of obstacles to accountability for teachers in the education of children and who are contributing to the very difficult economic times that we find in California.
FLASH: Carly, I appreciate your time. I am very pleased that you are on the mend, and thank you for the time.
FIORINA.: Well, Jon, thank you so much for your time.
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