Carly Fiorina first gained attention on the campaign trail for rebutting Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s talking points. Now, the super PAC backing Fiorina, C.A.R.L.Y. for America, has taken on a different Gray Lady: the New York Times.
The super PAC bought a full-page ad pushing back against criticism from columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin who described Fiorina’s tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard as “not so sterling.” Tom Perkins, a venture capitalist and member of HP’s board of directors during Fiorina’s tenure, penned a response titled “The Truth About Carly.”
“I was in the room for many of the decisions she made. I can attest to the strength of Carly’s leadership, the accuracy of her vision and the quality of her management,” he wrote. “Carly was an excellent CEO. She led HP through one of the worst economic times in decades. Less than two years into Carly’s leadership, the dot-com bubble went bust. Silicon Valley was in chaos. Companies were shedding jobs almost daily. … While other Silicon Valley icons like Sun Microsystems disappeared, Carly’s vision and execution not only helped to save HP but made it a strong, more versatile company that could compete in the changing technology sector.”
Perkins emphasis on being shoulder-to-shoulder with Fiorina during difficult times appeared intended to show stark contrast to Sorkin’s comments as an outside observer.
“[I]t is curious to those of us who have reported on her business career that there has not been a greater focus in recent days on her “track records and accomplishments,” as she suggested she should be measured by,” Sorkin wrote last week. “Even more striking, Mrs. Fiorina, the only former female chief executive among the candidates, continues to promote her business experience on the trail, yet she was fired by Hewlett-Packard after the company’s stock dropped by half in 2005.”
“[A]s the campaign goes on, Mrs. Fiorina will have difficulty arguing that her time as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard should be viewed as an asset, and not a liability.”
Perkins’ advertisement counters Sorkin’s account of Fiorina’s dismissal.
“Critics often claim was fired at HP because she was unsuccessful. As a member of the board, I can tell you this is not true,” Perkins wrote. “You see, some board members wanted to micro-manage the company, hand picking friends and allies to run divisions. This is no way to run a global company and Carly had the strength of character and courage of conviction to stand up to it and ultimately she lost her job because of it.”
“While lesser leaders would have accepted offers of transition plans and graceful resignations, Carly would have none of that. Carly demanded to be fired. In order to restore peace to the board I voted to fire her. That was a mistake.”
While the Fiorina-aligned super PAC challenges the Times’ criticism head-on, the official campaign has been busy waging war against CNN, and its criterion for the next GOP presidential debate.
“Despite being solidly in the top ten by every measure, the political establishment is still rigging the game to keep Carly off the main debate stage next month,” the Fiorina campaign said in an email previously reported by the Washington Examiner. “If the RNC won’t tell CNN to treat post-debate polling consistently with pre-debate polling, they are putting their thumb on the scale and choosing to favor candidates with higher polling for three weeks in July over candidates with measurable momentum in August and September.”
While other presidential campaigns have avoided responding to criticism or negative press, the Fiorina campaign sent an email to reporters last week detailing the “mainstream” media’s efforts to “demonize” Fiorina, writing “Dear MSM: Game on.” Victory would seem to mean making the primetime stage of the next GOP presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, the state where Fiorina lost the election for U.S. Senate in 2010.
