Her mixed legacy as CEO of giant computer firm Hewlett-Packard (HP) is shaping up as either a blessing or a curse for hopeful Republican presidential nominee Carly Fiorina.
On the one hand, Fiorina told Fox News that during her
5½-year tenure as CEO, "We doubled the company from $45 billion to $90 billion. We went from market laggard in every product category to market leader in every product category and in every market in which we competed. I'll run on that record all day long."
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On the other hand, many HP employees and executives give Fiorina low marks in how she ran the company.
Jason Burnett, grandson of company co-founder David Packard and mayor of Carmel, California, told
CNN, "She did damage to a great company and I don't want to see her do damage to a great country."
Fiorina has not officially
announced her candidacy, telling CNN she will make her decision by late April or early May. However, she added, "I think now this is a prospect that's way over 50 percent."
She gave an even stronger indication of her intentions when she recently
hired Sarah Isgur Flores, the Republican National Committee's communications director, to join her super PAC, Unlocking Potential, CNN said.
The presidential race is not Fiorina's first political rodeo. She mounted a challenge to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, in 2010 and lost.
At that time, a pro-Boxer ad stated, "As the CEO of HP, Carly Fiorina laid off 30,000 workers. Fiorina shipped jobs to China. And while Californians lost their jobs, Fiorina tripled her salary, bought a $1 million yacht and five corporate jets," CNN reported.
In that election, among HP employees, Fiorina raised just $7,000 in campaign funds, while Boxer raised $15,000.
Roy Verley, former corporate communications worker at HP, told CNN, "Carly arrived with this imperial air and East Coast flair and a lot of people sensed, and I'm one of them, right away, that this might not be a good cultural match."
Whether Fiorina, 60, wins the GOP nomination or not, she already has begun firing salvos at her most likely opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"Like Hillary Clinton, I too have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles around the globe, but unlike her, I've actually accomplished something," she told Fox News.
In a
recent Bloomberg poll, only 1 percent of those surveyed said Fiorina would be their choice for president, with 11 percent having a favorable opinion of her and 13 percent holding an unfavorable opinion.
Fiorina, who favors destroying the Islamic State (ISIS), the right to life, corporate tax cuts and repealing Obamacare, still sees her time at HP and lack of political experience as a positive asset in a presidential campaign.
"I think that maybe we need to return to a citizen government where it's not just professional politicians who step forward when their nation calls them, but people who have relevant experience from other aspects of life," she told Fox News.
Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics told Fox News, "She is unlikely to be the nominee. I think she's unlikely even to be the vice presidential nominee, but she would enrich the field if she ran."