Carly Fiorina’s job as CEO of Hewlett-Packard lasted almost six years before the company’s board of directors showed her the door in 2005. Her position as Sen. Ted Cruz’s vice presidential pick lasted about a week.
Cruz, the conservative Republican firebrand from Texas, on April 27 introduced Fiorina as his running mate in what many political analysts called a desperation move. The announcement came a day after businessman Donald Trump swept GOP primaries in five eastern states, setting the scenario where Cruz had to win the Indiana primary May 3 if he had any chance of challenging Trump at the Republican convention in June.
Instead, Cruz was trounced, amassing 36.6 percent of the vote while watching Trump garner 53.3 percent. A dejected Cruz told supporters that he was suspending his campaign, saying that “tonight, I’m sorry to say that path has been foreclosed,” adding that despite his best efforts, “the voters chose another path.”
Political pundits said last week that they didn’t expect Fiorina—who had run for the presidential nomination until giving up her own campaign in February and endorsing Cruz a month later—to give the Texas senator much of a bump in the polls, though the announcement did take away some coverage of Trump’s primary victories, if only temporarily. She garnered little news coverage, though did make some headlines earlier this week when she accidentally fell off a stage while introducing Cruz at a rally.
There were a number of problems with Fiorina’s choice as Cruz’s running mate, a key one was that many Republican voters already had given their say on her during her presidential run, when even during her best moments, her poll numbers barely approached double digits. Fiorina also had run on her uneven tenure as HP’s CEO, opening her up to criticism about the 30,000 job cuts, the sharp decline in the company’s stock price and the controversial acquisition of Compaq during her time at the giant tech vendor.
In addition, her political resume essentially came down to her 2010 loss to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and her failed presidential bid. Now it includes the shortest VP bid in modern history.