I think this is a case of Democratic politicians being afraid to criticize one of their own, as Ortiz is a Democrat with significant political ambitions.
The GOP has plenty of tech-friendly elected representatives despite the GOP's low share of the tech vote (Issa, Moran, Paul, Amash, etc). Tech freedom issues have a natural home in the GOP's free market wing. One of my hobbies (along with many other folks) is getting together the GOP with the tech industry.
I still can't over the fact that both of California's Democratic senators cosponsored PIPA and we haven't done anything about it. If we had elected Fiorina, maybe we would have had one less cosponsor from our state. That shows me that the tech industry still sucks at politics.
Silicon Valley's Democratic representatives in the House (Lofgren) are great on tech issues. But we get our asses kicked by Hollywood and unions at the state level.
Given the choice between recognition of basic civil rights (same sex marriage, reproductive rights) and a not-insane view of copyright law, I think I'd choose basic civil rights. The Right needs to get their social positions into the 20th century, or preferably the 21st century, before they can expect any kind of youth (read: techie) vote[1].
>Given the choice between recognition of basic civil rights (same sex marriage, reproductive rights) and a not-insane view of copyright law, I think I'd choose basic civil rights.
What makes you think you have to choose between them? Marriage is a state issue. The federal government has no business in it, and when try (e.g. DOMA) the courts can strike it down. Which means you can vote for Republicans federally and Democrats at the state level and get both of the things you want.
>"Given the choice between recognition of basic civil rights (same sex marriage, reproductive rights)"
It's funny that you lump those two together. Public opinion has been moving quickly in favor of gay marriage, but the trench warfare over abortion is the same as it always was. One NRO writer claims the country has gotten more more pro-life and more pro-gay over the last 30 years, and that sounds correct given my memory of the last time I found raw stats. More female voters identify as pro-life than pro-choice last time I checked, though you wouldn't know it in blue states.
Personally, I have too much libertarian in me to call myself pro-life. But I find that the left lacks intellectual honesty and serious engagement with the stance of the other side whenever I hear their rhetoric. They seem to convince through loud shouting and calling their opponents names, or labeling their own positions "basic civil rights".
Killing a human fetus may not be "murder" but it surely carries some moral weight. And no middle ground position will be stable without recognition of that.
My opinion is that nobody with knowledge of what a disaster Fiorina was as CEO could vote for her as senator. Even if they did agree with her political positions (which few in California do).
If it were Meg Whitman running for senator, I'd have voted for her in a heartbeat. I respect her. But Fiorina? No way!
I'm not knowledgable on her time at HP and your concerns sound legitimate. But Fiorina couldn't have been worse than Boxer/Feinstein on tech issues. They just voted for the internet tax in the Senate for chrissakes.
Fiorina's and Whitman's double defeat in 2010 was a big setback for those of us trying to convince the GOP that courting the tech vote is worth their trouble.
> I'm not knowledgable on her time at HP and your concerns sound legitimate.
Really, and you read hackernews? Florina was close to a sociopath.
It's about time we started paying our taxes, we were supposed to anyways, nothing new here.
> Fiorina's and Whitman's double defeat in 2010 was a big setback for those of us trying to convince the GOP that courting the tech vote is worth their trouble.
It wasn't a setback, they were running a sociopath and a soso ex eBay exec in a year when obama was running for reelection. The GOP just put out some sacrificial bodies out there and forgot about it.
There is no "close to" when it comes to Fiorina's sociopathy. And she doesn't even have the saving grace of competency.
Also 2010 was not actually an Obama re-election year. But the Republicans have a fundamental demographic problem in California, and I think that the national party understands this.
According to national trends, in 10-15 years, the problems that they are having in California are likely to become national problems until they can change their political identity. (Why do you think that the Republican leadership is trying to be soft on immigration reform?)
>According to national trends, in 10-15 years, the problems that they are having in California are likely to become national problems until they can change their political identity. (Why do you think that the Republican leadership is trying to be soft on immigration reform?)
The fundamental problem the Republicans have is that they have kind of an unstable coalition. The Democrats have a lock on the urban working class. That's close to half the country by itself, so the Republicans need a majority of everyone else in order to win. But "everyone else" is not a homogenous group. It's libertarians, religious conservatives, Wall St., rural blue collar workers, small business owners, etc. And it's shrinking as a percentage of the country, largely because "urban working class" is growing.
So the problem they have is that to get more voters, they have to gore somebody's ox. There are a huge ton of libertarian-leaning Democrats who would switch parties if the Republicans would stop pandering to religious extremists on social issues, but then they risk losing the huge voting block of religious conservatives. I personally think that could be a good strategy: Just say "screw it" and go to the left of the Democrats on social issues. If the Democrats stick with liberal social positions then the religious conservatives don't have any religious conservative candidate anymore, and they're still largely pro-free market people who may continue to vote Republican. Meanwhile if you can push the Democrats to the right on social issues then all the better, because now the Republicans can claim the growing demographic of urban voters who want liberal social positions, to say nothing of what it would do for women voters. But that's a pretty radical change.
Changing their position on immigration instead makes a lot of sense, because the growing Hispanic demographic leans pro-market and religious and is mostly disgusted with Republicans for their immigration policies. The problem is the result will be to increase polarization, because it allows the Republicans to double down on "monopolies are good + gays are bad" while making all the races closer, because it allows the Republicans to gain with Hispanics in urban areas, while giving the Democrats more votes among blue collar voters in rural areas who don't like the new immigration policy. And having a larger number of contentious races with more polarization is not likely to be good for the country.
The change on immigration feels to me like "too little, too late". The leadership would like to see the party's position change, and various leaders are following course.
But you have to go to elections with the party you have, not the one you want to have. Republicans voted in anti-immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere. Those laws are very popular with the Republican base. Politicians running for office have to recognize that reality. And as they pander to that reality, they make comments that reinforce that. All of which hurts them with the Latino population.
Most companies of 30 people do not have as a major logistical problem, "Open envelopes filled with cash fast enough." eBay did.
I personally respect her. But eBay was on a path to success even before she showed up. And the eBay culture that developed has some notable imperfections.
More recently her tenure at HP has been disappointing. I personally am sympathetic to the theory that the depth of HPs problems were not fully understood by the stock market, and a period of severe disappointment was inevitable before they got back on track. But I can understand someone blaming that on her. (And indeed, unless something positive happens with the stock price, I'm not sure how much more time she'll get to right that ship.)
The GOP has plenty of tech-friendly elected representatives despite the GOP's low share of the tech vote (Issa, Moran, Paul, Amash, etc). Tech freedom issues have a natural home in the GOP's free market wing. One of my hobbies (along with many other folks) is getting together the GOP with the tech industry.
I still can't over the fact that both of California's Democratic senators cosponsored PIPA and we haven't done anything about it. If we had elected Fiorina, maybe we would have had one less cosponsor from our state. That shows me that the tech industry still sucks at politics.
Silicon Valley's Democratic representatives in the House (Lofgren) are great on tech issues. But we get our asses kicked by Hollywood and unions at the state level.