The late cultural critic Neil Postman used to pose a simple question to gauge whether a new technology was worth the investment: "What is the problem," he would ask, "to which this is the solution?"
That question occurred to me last week as I contemplated the looming U.S. Senate candidacy of Carly Fiorina.
The Republican, who was ousted as chairwoman and chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co. in 2005, took a first step in that direction last week by filing tax papers for a political fundraising committee. Her quarry in November 2010 will presumably be Barbara Boxer, a Democrat in her third Senate term.
Fiorina hasn't yet said anything specific of her goals in this race -- her spokeswoman told me she's still doing "due diligence to see if she wants to run or not." But judging from her numerous TV appearances and op-ed essays, she offers standard GOP fare, with a few inconsistencies thrown in.
For example, she thinks chief executives of companies that accepted federal bailout money should resign, but she objects that the Obama White House forcibly bounced Rick Wagoner as chairman of General Motors Corp.
She's also against government limits on executive pay (her kiss-off from HP brought her more than $40 million in severance and other compensation).
Having recently undergone treatment for breast cancer, she wrote in an op-ed piece in July that California should maintain its "commitments" to its "cancer-fighting community."
As befits a candidate for an office with the power to mandate but no responsibility for administration, she didn't specify how much the state should spend on this worthy goal, where the money should go, or what other priorities should make way for the one she chose to support.
Since Fiorina has no political experience -- and on the evidence of her career at HP and her mixed performance as an advisor to the John McCain presidential campaign, not the greatest of political skills -- it looks like her pitch will be heavily based on her business background. Now is as good a time as any to review that career. Fiorina began her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard with tremendous eclat. She was recruited in July 1999 at the age of 44 from telecommunications company Lucent Technologies Inc., where she was known as a bold manager unafraid to face down the old-boys' network of engineers.
