In politics, there’s no such thing as a tiny mistake. Even the silliest moments become “gaffes” at the behest of overeager journalists looking to “break” the Next Big Scandal©. There’s no avoiding it; what matters is how you deal with it.
Carly Fiorina knows how to deal with it.
When Fiorina took the plunge into the 2016 presidential pool, her team discovered that somewhere down the line, whoever was in charge of these things had neglected to buy CarlyFiorina.org. What’s worse, the person who had managed to secure the domain is currently using it to lambast Fiorina’s tenure at HP:
“Carly Fiorina failed to register this domain. So I’m using it to tell you how many people she laid off at Hewlett-Packard,” the page reads, followed by 30,000 sad-face emotions that it says represents one person that lost their job.
The Hill later reported that an employee at the Service Employees International Union, which regularly donates to the Democratic Party, created the website. He told The Hill that he made the site entirely on his own time with his own resources late last year and that it had nothing to do with his employer.
During her recent appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Meyers brought it up—and was promptly taken to school.
Watch:
“Do you know who owns SethMeyers.org?” she asked Meyers on Late Night.
“I do,” she answered. “I just bought it in the green room actually. So you better be really nice to me tonight.”
In return, Meyers joked, “I’m going to start laying people off so you have something to put on it.”
This is how you handle a situation the media desperately wants to turn into a “crisis.” Fiorina owned her actions at HP (and the layoffs), didn’t fight the “wow, someone should have bought that domain” narrative, and turned the tables with a classy-yet-sassy joke.
She may not be at the top of the deck yet, but her ability to pull this off without coming across as defensive and vulnerable makes me want to take a second look at what she has to offer.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Speaking of which, I just checked. Amymiller.org is available. May be cheap, but definitely worth it!
Sorry Amy, couldn’t resist. 😉
The .org TLD initially was restricted to non-profits. That no longer applies, but it is still considered to be reserved for “public-minded” communities. CarlyFiorina.com is owned ( apparently ) by Carly Forina or her campaign.
For a person to register a “.org” site like this is just slimy.
PS: I don’t consider her layoffs to reflect on her tenure, except to a symptom. Had she done her job well, she would have been plenty of jobs at HP,
If you look back on that industry during her tenure you will see that almost all of them went through some pretty tough times. Her decision to buy Compaq was brilliant and has made HP what it is today. She got on the wrong side of the board of directors and she lost that battle. She was also like Welch in that she made hard decisions that saved the company but hurt a lot of people. Those people are now crying out to anyone who will listen that she is a meany. In the old days we called it leadership.
Right on. Too many people today are either business illiterate, or conditioned to contempt of the business world and executives. To be responsible to employees, board of directors, shareholders, customers, regulators — a very complex job. Carly was a clear-eyed and competent executive who made difficult but demonstrably good decisions for her company. Many poor and short-sighted executives out there for sure, but Carly was not one of them.
oh-ho, she did too! redirects to her main campaign page. I like me a candidate that doesn’t play their games by their ever-shifting rules.
I had to check, and, yes, she actually did it.
Wonderful. Rand Paul could take lessons. Cruz and Fiorina (in whatever order) — a devastating ticket.
I love that! She PWND the little wimp!
Ya know I am liking this lady more and more. Honestly I think she and Dr. Carson are better suited fora V.P. slot before the big chair, but who knows.
Yeah, this gal’s growing on me.
Got all the negative stuff about her here in CA when she ran against Ma’m Boxer. I should know better but there was so much slime thrown at her I ended up believing some of it.
Right now I’m really happy with the idea of Cruz/Fiorina; that works for me!
Got lot of respect for Dr. Carson, but he fails on 2A; that’s not negotiable.
She is running for Veep…which is fine with me.
Does anybody have a warm and fuzzy feeling for my proposed ticket? Number one being Scott Walker with Carly Fiorina as his number two.
Meyers has no talent.
The fact he’s a show on an old, formerly major network just proves it!