Look Who's Stumping Now: Carly Fiorina and Tom Peters Back Presidential Rivals
Can Carly Fiorina help John McCain get elected? She sure thinks so. But management guru Tom Peters, who admires Fiorina's leadership record, thinks she's got this one dead wrong. He's stumping for Barack Obama.
CIO — Carly Fiorina is no Joe CEO.
When she led HP, Fiorina was frequently and publicly graded on everything from her personal style to her business acumen. Since then, she's put herself on the public stage for a very different reason: to convince Americans to vote for John McCain. Even if you're not an undecided voter, it's interesting to hear what former HP CEO Fiorina and management guru Tom Peters have said in recent political speeches about McCain and Barack Obama.
Interestingly, Fiorina, a GOP leader who travels the country talking up McCain's economic policies, was named CEO of 2007 by Peters.
But on politics, the two don't see eye to eye on much. Peters, who wrote In Search of Excellence and who has given 2,500 speeches on management, gave his first-ever political speech in support of Obama at small rally in Manchester, Vermont(not far from his home in Tinmouth.)
Their respective political speeches couldn't have been more different. Where Fiorina was broad and measured, Peters was direct and fiery. Fiorina's digs at Obama were subtle, while Peters called McCain cranky and said he couldn't "stomach" Palin.
Here's a look at what the former HP chief and the management guru have to say about their candidates.
Experience
Experience was a central theme of McCain's campaign until the Arizona Senator tapped Sarah Palin, a relatively inexperienced governor from Alaska, as his running mate. But McCain's choice of Palin didn't stop Fiorina from emphasizing McCain's tenure and "wisdom" in her speech at the RNC. She said McCain's leadership and experience have "prepared him for the presidency."
But where Fiorina lauds McCain as a wise statesman, Peters sees a stodgy old fogey. "He's old, he's tiring, he's uninspiring, he's cranky, he's inflexible and he looks to the past," Peters said of McCain during his speech in Vermont. "You can't have a 72-year-old in the White House," he added, especially when that 72-year-old's vice president is Sarah Palin.
Peters said that a vote for McCain is a vote for Sarah Palin, and that even though he considers himself a "wild and radical feminist," he "can't stomach" the idea of Palin in the White House. Peters reminded his audience that 27 percent of the men who have been elected president have been succeeded in office by their vice president. Consequently, he's fearful of what Palin might do if she were in charge of using nuclear weapons.
