Re: McCain Veep Wire

Pawlenty, Schmalenty: "Are you more or less willing to vote for John McCain if his running mate is a wife?"

Carly Fiorina made her Sunday show surrogate debut over the weekend; veepstakes handicappers should consider her performance an audition. Her strengths on paper are obvious: her private sector success* fills in some of McCain's resume gaps highlighted by Mitt Romney's run; she's not just young, but would also be a history-maker in her own right; her calm, cool, authoritative demeanor is a nice contrast to the more, say, passionate persona of the candidate. Her "This Week" appearance underscored those but also chipped at some of her weaknesses, including a lack of facility -- if not a total blank slate -- on conservative culture war issues. Also, I'm not sure McCain has ever pronounced her last name the same way twice. Could be a problem.

* Though her career has an objectively upward arc -- she started at H-P as a secretary -- she was also fired as H-P's CEO after its board of directors objected to the merger she hatched with Compaq were disappointed with results the Compaq merger she helmed.**

** Thanks for pointing out the timeline error there, GySgt213. Was writing from memory, sorry. As for the spying thing, I thought it was Patricia Dunn that was implicated in that, not Fiorina? That's not as much from memory.