Whitman, Fiorina Fail, Does That Mean Voters Don't Like Silicon Valley

I was relieved to see that both of them failed in their bids for power, but I don't think it means that voters don't like CEOs or that they don't like Silicon Valley technologists.  To start with, both ran as Republicans.  In fact, Silicon Valley trends towards the socially-liberally, economically-conservative democratic type.  Republican hostility to immigrants, gays, and science doesn't play well in a region where all three are fairy important parts fo the economy.

The second issue for both candidates is that while they were CEOs, they were not considered universally successful.  Fiorina had vision, but was ultimately fired by the HP board (who on their own might be considered a pretty bad board) and Whitman presided over eBay's decline from visionary marketplace into nickel-and-dime profit-machine (at the expense of millions of small business owners).

Certainly, in my neighborhood in Woodside, you couldn't see a single lawn sign for either candidate, and I consider Woodside a pretty good barometer of how the valley feels about politics.  Other initiatives that were strongly backed by Silicon Valley did get through - including elimination of the super-majority for budgets and the failure of the Texas-oil-backed initiative to suspend California's clean air rules.

Photo from Flickr cc.  Author