A Woman in the White House

Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump were the main characters of the two recent Republican debates, but for different reasons. This first public event might have totally derailed Trump’s candidacy for the presidency; however, it has served to seriously strengthen Fiorina’s.

Fiorina was the most distinguished among her group of seven candidates, according to 83 percent of survey respondents. Trump, on the other hand, disappointed a considerable number of Republicans who were gathered by Fox to evaluate the results of the debate. He appeared inconsiderate, superficial and intimidating to the focus group. At the end of the discussion, they could have told him, “You’re fired.”

Nevertheless, the two candidates have some things in common. Neither Fiorina nor Trump is a professional politician. Both come from the world of business, enjoy generous economic situations and were educated in good universities. Trump claims to have a personal fortune of $4 billion, but the tangle of his multiple businesses makes it difficult to know with certainty.

Between 1999 and 2005, Fiorina was the CEO or president of Hewlett-Packard, a gigantic technology corporation created in a mythical garage in Silicon Valley (California) in 1939 by the two engineers that gave the company its name. Today, the company has 300,000 employees, operates on half of the planet, and sells $111 billion worth of products annually – a number higher than the gross domestic product of more than 100 countries.

Shareholders fired Fiorina, paid her $40 million in compensation and specifically said that they were getting rid of her because of her management style, not her results.

Donald Trump is a well-known television personality and a notable businessman of real estate, casinos, beauty pageants, books and many other activities, including a clothing line for men. His name has become a brand associated with his strange blond hair that many (mistakenly) believe is an incredible wig. No one chooses to feign hair with a bird’s nest.

Trump has a dozen bankruptcies on his record, a complicated biography shared with several stupendously known women, and a suspicious history of civil and criminal lawsuits that keep the FBI on permanent watch, although it has never formally accused him of anything, I think.

He sued comedian Bill Maher because Maher doubted that Trump could demonstrate that he wasn’t the son of an orangutan. The malicious lie was easy to disprove: Trump did everything to inundate media headlines with the harsh insult. Orangutans, on the other hand, are generally polite, quiet and rather melancholy. The two have different genes.

Although it is too early to make predictions, if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic candidate, which seems less likely every day given the growing scandal over her lost emails, she might face Fiorina. If so, there would be no doubt that the United States would have a woman seated in the White House in 2017.

In any case, is American society ready to elect a woman, whether Democrat or Republican? I suppose so. Barack Obama’s great legacy is not his government work, which has positive and negative aspects, but rather the fact that he was elected and re-elected at all. After his two consecutive triumphs, there is no doubt that American voters are much more accepting than their prejudiced stereotype.

What is less clear is whether they would elect a businessman. The 44 tenants that have occupied the White House thus far have generally been soldiers, lawyers, engineers, politicians, a tailor, a teacher and an actor, but few businessmen. Those who have had business experience have not owned or run large companies, but rather small entities tied to agricultural production.

During the 2012 election, when Obama faced Mitt Romney, a successful Mormon investor, one of his most effective arguments was that businessmen are trained to maximize their own benefits and not to identify the common good.

I suppose that if Fiorina becomes the Republican candidate she will have to face that attack. She might respond that some general economic principles work in all fields.

She could say, for example, that businessmen know how to control expenses, increase productivity and promote the creation of profitable jobs in the private sector, something that is forbidden for social organizations, which are much more concerned with creating client networks powered by public budgets.

That new debate will be very interesting.