Palin bucks the tea parties, endorses Carly Fiorina (DeVore spokesman responds)

Way back in November, right after announcing her bid for the U.S. Senate in California, Republican candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina told conservatives in Washington that she "shared Sarah Palin's values." Today, Palin returns the favor.

Carly is the Commonsense Conservative that California needs and our country could sure use in these trying times. Most importantly, she’s running for the right reasons. She has an understanding that is sorely lacking in D.C. She’s not a career politician. She’s a businesswoman who has run a major corporation. She knows how to really incentivize job creation. Her fiscal conservatism is rooted in real life experience. She knows that when government grows, the private sector shrinks under the burden of debt and deficits. We can trust Carly to do the right thing for America’s economy and to make the principled decisions she has throughout her professional career.

Fiorina, who's struggled a bit to regain front-runner status in the primary race since former congressman Tom Campbell entered it, has collected endorsement after endorsement from national conservative groups -- especially anti-abortion rights groups. The most conservative candidate in the race, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, has been endorsed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and the Tea Party Express, so there you go if you're looking for a story of "tea party infighting."

Sarah Palin's endorsement brings with it tremendous media attention, but not necessarily votes. Conservative activists in California know and like Chuck DeVore -- and that's our bottom line.

I think the best I can do is point you toward the responses from the conservative base on Palin's Facebook page, and on Twitter: there's a lot of them respectfully but firmly telling the former Governor that she's been misled here. And they're right.

If you are intellectually honest you will readily observe that during her tenure, all four measures went down."

The indexes you note, IBM, DJIA, and NASDAQ are hardly useful for comparison sake. IBM was a struggling dinosaur. DJIA and NASDAQ are not competing companies - they are of course not companies at all. DJIA and NASDAQ may be an indicator of general market conditions, but drops in the indexes are merely excuses for companies that can not compete in a toughening industry.

Dell is a more appropriate comparison - I am sure you have their numbers as well for the same period.

The numbers that are most supportive of the "Fiorina ruined HP" claim are the stock prices during her tenure. Someone as fixed on numbers performance as she was could not even keep them up in a short 5 year run. I don't subscribe to the "everything in the short term" management philosophy so maybe I am not the one to be critical of her on this point. But, if short term numbers were her focus, she never achieved any of them.

While I was not there in person, what I have read about her management attitude surely turned a successful company on its head by replacing employee drive and encouragement with a club and threats. I am familiar with that business management philosophy. Never have I seen a company using it live up to its potential.

Thanks for your replies.

I worked in a major corporation, which underwent mergers, acquisitions, management changes and some cultural shocks.

It is commonly claimed that she damaged HP, but I have not seen convincing proof of that.

All I have of the proof that she damaged HP is what I've read. She first came to my attention with a flattering Forbes article years ago that I saw as unbelievable. I am a skeptic.

On your experience at major corporations going through mergers, acquisitions and management changes, you certainly have basis to question charges against Fiorina. I'm sure you have very good perspective on the culture of large corporations. That experience cannot be discounted in this discussion.

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