Carly Cannot Win

Carly Fiorina is Mitt Romney without the heart.

That is not my opinion, I like Carly Fiorina, but it is what will be done to her in the general election. Republican voters are tolerant of business executives who had to send jobs offshore or fire workers. The general electorate is not. She left her last job with a giant golden parachute that made her rich, something that the workers she fired did not get.

That isn’t fair to her, but it is the story that will be told about her if she gets the nomination.

If the Republican Party should have learned one thing from the 2012 failure, it is that the GOP cannot nominate a rich candidate who fired a great many people. It is so sad intellectually that I thought we could beat it in 2012, and I was wrong. Too many Reagan Democrats, people who will have to vote for the GOP nominee, worry that the party of Lincoln does not care for working people. This is a problem the party has had since FDR and still has.

Carly Fiorina is the walking embodiment of the GOP candidate who cannot win Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania or any other state with a large number of working class voters. She is smart, an effective communicator, and I do not doubt her conservative beliefs. As a spokesperson for the party, she is fantastic. She is also the very definition of a failed Republican candidate. She is tough, but she will be portrayed as heartless.

The Clinton machine will make her the picture of every heartless boss who ever sent jobs to another country or who failed into millions while the workers she fired got welfare. If you are tempted to disagree, ask: if Mitt Romney could see his career turned into Ebenezer Scrooge, what will be done to Carly? If Romney could not get Ohio autoworkers to vote, why will Carly?

For the sake of argument, let’s give Carly Fiorina the benefit of every doubt. Let’s believe every description she makes of her career and assume that every attack on her record in business is partisan politics. She does not dispute that she had to fire many people, that she got fired, and that her family got rich as a result. She does say that her decisions saved the company, that it was a tough time, and that she was a good CEO.

Unlike Romney, she has not been a moderate governor of a blue state.

Unlike Romney, she did not save an Olympics.

Unlike Romney, she does not have a record of extraordinary charity.

Unlike Romney, her Board fired her.

How can she survive the attack ads that Romney could not? Let’s assume that she is a much better communicator and debater than Romney, ignoring his waxing of Obama in the first presidential debate. Let’s assume she crushes Clinton in every confrontation. How does she answer the attack ads that the Clinton machine will wash over Ohio?

When someone is a textbook example of a failed CEO, it helps in the GOP primaries to say: “My critics are partisan Democrats.” It will not help in the general election. Carly Fiorina is defined by her career in technology and her last moment was being fired.

I have no favorite in this race . . . I have given money to a few different candidates . . . but I cannot see how a cost-cutting, off shore job moving, fired CEO who lost her only race can be President of the United States. If good debating skills could overcome the odds, Mike Huckabee would be ending his second term.

Carly Fiorina is a fine speaker, debater, and for all I know a great person, but she will never carry the rust belt and so will never be President of the United States.