More Republican cretins

What is it about Republicans and failed businessmen (or businesswomen, in the following case)? Republicans are always whining, "we want to run government like a business", then run politicians for office who failed at every business they ever ran. Case in point: The Republican nominees for the Senate and Governorship in California.

Let's look at their gubernatorial candidate first: Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay. Meggers is most famous for paying $2.5 billion for Skype yet somehow forgot to buy the source code or intellectual property rights, meaning she actually paid for, err, nothing, resulting in a $1.5 billion loss for eBay when they finally managed to get rid of whatever it is of Skype that they actually owned. Indeed, virtually all of her strategic initiatives ended up being disasters, the only parts of eBay that actually work and make money are the parts that existed before she arrived at eBay (that is, the core auction site and associated PayPal payment site). She at least did not run eBay into the ground -- but looking at the record, it is also clear that she is a lousy businesswoman.

Carly Fiorini, the Republican candidate for the Senate, is even worse. She is most infamous for being the most hated CEO in HP history, who spearheaded the disastrous Compaq merger that almost destroyed HP and ended up being run out of town due to her mismanagement, leading to triumphant headlines like "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" when she was shown the door. That's just how hated she is here in the Silicon Valley -- she is widely considered to be an imperious fool who is nowhere near as smart as she believes she is, who refuses to listen to anybody and has no patience with actual facts when she has decided to act. She was, in short, an utter disaster as a businesswoman, and there's no indication that she would be anything better as a Senator.

Yet both of these women bafflingly have a good chance of winning this fall. Why is that? Discuss.

-- Badtux the Baffled Penguin