James writes:

> Well according to MSNBC... The Califorina Recall vote is back on for Oct
>  7th....

I think that almost everyone believed that that would be the decision of the
full court. But of course the distraction was fun while it lasted.

However, on that same subject, the Governorship of California, John Heilemann
writes in the newest issue of Business 2.0 that he believes that Carly
Fiorina is actually preparing to run for Governor of California herself, saying that
it would be a lot easier and a great deal more exciting than staying with HP
and having to slog it out year after year with IBM and Dell. Here's a part of
what he writes:

=======================================

What the Compaq deal has done for HP is give it prodigious size and scale. At
the New York product launch, Fiorina claimed that HP is "the leading consumer
digital hardware company in the world," its gadgets occupying more than 10
percent of total global retail shelf space. In any consolidating industry, size
and scale are genuine assets. And with each passing day, Sun's Scott McNealy
seems increasingly prescient in his long-ago prediction that high-tech would
wind up looking like the auto industry, dominated by its own Big Three. By
taking over Compaq, Fiorina substantially increased the odds that HP will be among
the surviving trio. What she didn't do was alter the fact that HP is a
bone-deep hardware company -- and that the future of the hardware business promises
to be nasty, brutish, and boring.

All of which brings us back to Fiorina's career path. Pretend for a moment
that you are Carly. On the one hand, you decide that HP will be your ultimate
legacy. So you dig in, you bear down, you prepare for countless years of
grinding competition -- first and foremost with IBM (General Motors (GM)),
secondarily with Dell (to see which company gets to be Ford (F) and which is stuck being
Chrysler (DCX)) and possibly Sun (American Motors, I suppose).

On the other hand, you're only 49. There's still plenty of time for another
great adventure. You decide that HP is primarily a vehicle, a platform from
which to launch your next incarnation. (Witnessing her keynotes, there's already
a certain inescapable sense that she's selling herself as much as she's
selling the firm.) You stick it out for another few years, just long enough for the
inevitable high-tech rebound, which allows HP to put up some healthy numbers.
You declare that you've saved a Silicon Valley institution, you hang up your
hat, and you start running for ... something.

If you ask me, the decision may have already been made. At a recent event in
Santa Clara, Calif., the longtime technology journalist Louise Kehoe put the
question directly to Fiorina: Does she have a hankering for high elected
office? After mouthing the requisite platitudes about how running HP is a "great
privilege," Fiorina coughed up this: "Oh, you know, anything might happen ...
Never say never in life."

Really, could the answer be any clearer? Carly in 2012. You read it here
first.

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--
John Heilemann's next book, "The Valley," will be published by HarperCollins
in 2004.

=======================================

Wirt Atmar

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