Millionaire Businesswomen Win Republican Primaries

Former Silicon Valley Businesswomen
Win Republican Primaries

They are rich and intelligent and both have created dizzying careers in the world of business and high tech. These women with brains and money are also Republicans and have campaigned on anti-establishment slogans seeking to revolutionize California’s politics.

Millionaire Meg Whitman, former head of the online site eBay and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina walked away with two Republican primaries in California on Tuesday. These victories present major challenges for the Democratic protégés of the Obama Administration. Whitman, whose wide smile and halo of hair hide a formidable personality, will be the Republican Party’s candidate to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California. As such, she will face competition from Jerry Brown, a former Democratic governor who is well-established in the state and close to the powerful labor unions.

For her part, the elegant Carly Fiorina, with her modern, short haircut and strong character — who stormed out of Hewlett-Packard in 2005 after running the famous high-tech company for nearly ten years — will face incumbent liberal Senator Barbara Boxer, a heavyweight in the Democratic Party, calling into question Boxer’s mandate for a fourth successive election. It will be a battle of political experience against the superwomen of the business world.

Both women have had atypical careers and have emphasized this during the campaign. After studying medieval history and philosophy (!) at Stanford University, Carly Fiorina, 54, failed to finish law school, and began her career as a secretary. Regarded by many as a “killer” for having fired tens of thousands of Hewlett-Packard employees in favor of outsourced jobs, she explains that these “tough choices” — the title of her memoir — helped save the company. Her argument has always been to present herself as a woman of action, capable of tackling problems head on. Meg Whitman — another star of Silicon Valley, who transformed the auction company eBay from a small business of 30 people into a multinational company with 1,100 employees — relies on very similar arguments.

The novelty that they bring to a worn out and disillusioned political landscape in California could make a difference. The wave of anger rising across America against Washington and incumbent politicians has not been spared in California, a state that is virtually bankrupt. But some analysts are calling for caution. Wealth is certainly a sizeable advantage. Meg Whitman has fully funded her campaign, putting $70 million into the race. Carly Fiorina has also funded her own campaign, for as much as $70 million, and states that she owes nothing to anyone. But both former advisers to John McCain should take into account the growing suspicion aroused by the well-to-do in a population hard hit by unemployment.

“We’re currently experiencing the greatest wave of populist anger that the body politic has seen in almost 20 years in the country, but the only people that voters dislike as much as career politicians are wealthy CEOs. We’ll see who they hate more this November,” said Dan Schnur, who chairs the California Fair Political Practices Commission.