All sharp, successful businesswomen who made millions as executives in the private sector, they identified 2010 as an apt historical moment for a Republican candidate with no political experience to break into politics. In pursuit of higher office, each committed considerable resources - more than $200 million combined - to challenge seemingly vulnerable Democrats.
Each risk-taker came up far short of her goal.
Whitman, the 54-year-old former chief executive of eBay, burned through more than $140 million of her own money in a colossal loss in the California governor's race to Attorney General Jerry Brown. Also in California, Fiorina, 56, the former Hewlett-Packard leader, spent about $7 million of her own luchre in a bitter Senate loss to the incumbent, Barbara Boxer. And McMahon, 62, who with her husband built the smack-down empire called World Wrestling Entertainment in Connecticut, spent $50 million in seeking an open Senate seat, losing to Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.
The question isn't so much why three savvy businesswomen threw so much good money after bad in losing ventures to win political office. In a year when voters overwhelmingly registered their dissatisfaction with Democrats and the unemployment-riddled economy, the candidates had every reason to consider the millions a sound investment. Instead, the question is how they failed so resoundingly.
"It's in some ways like a highly underdeveloped country that suddenly strikes oil and they don't know what to do with the money and start spending it unwisely," said Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. Baker said that money is a threshold requirement in politics, "but above a certain amount you don't get a dividend for every extra dollar."
"And when it's your own money, you cast aside some of the restraints and keep spending, to the point where you cast aside certain other aspects of the campaign that might be deficient."
Whitman was the shakiest campaign presence of the three, and a colossal ad campaign could not correct that. Awkward on the trail and hounded by embarrassing reports that she had failed to vote most of her adult life and that her housekeeper was an illegal immigrant, she hired expensive media consultants, including chief strategist Mike Murphy, who made hundreds of thousands of dollars of Whitman's money and financed an onslaught of on-air ads that targeted women, Latinos and other traditionally Democratic constituencies. But the millions she spent to boost her appeal seemed to have the opposite result, as her likeability dropped below where it had been when she started.
Both Whitman and Fiorina waited an exceptionally long time to concede to their rivals, the former expressing pride in her campaign as she called it quits in the middle of the night, the latter waiting until a Wednesday morning conference call to admit defeat.
"We had an exceptional campaign," Fiorina said, blaming the loss on an inability to "overcome the registration advantage" Democrats enjoy in population centers like Los Angeles. Ultimately, she refused to "engage in a game of coulda, woulda, shouda."
But there was plenty to second-guess in Fiorina's inability to drift back to the center after her sharp tack right in the primary. In contrast to most centrist California candidates, Fiorina stuck to her opposition to abortion except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother's life; touted the benefits of offshore drilling; and championed gun rights.
Boxer pounced on Fiorina's positions on social issues and constantly linked the Republican to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who endorsed the GOP challenger.
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