Lost in the announcement
last week that Congresswoman Candy Miller endorsed Carly Fiorina for president
was Miller’s track record for backing truly terrible presidential candidates.

In fact, the Harrison
Township Republican’s two previous choices for the White House – Rudy Giuliani
in 2008 and Rick Perry in 2012 – each mounted efforts that are often cited as
the worst Republican presidential campaigns of recent decades.

Miller (still known as
“Candy” to her longtime Macomb County constituents) backed Giuliani very early in the ’08
contest, in February 2007. At the time, the former New York City mayor was atop
the polls for the GOP nomination. After maintaining frontrunner status for
several months, Giuliani experienced a spectacular collapse while pursuing a
highly questionable campaign strategy.

He decided to skip campaigning
in the early primary states and instead focus entirely on Florida. In the
front-loaded primary schedule of ’08, Giuliani finished a disastrous third in
the January Florida primary and quickly withdrew from the race.

In September 2011, Miller
endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was riding high in the GOP polls at the
time. Two months later, at a debate held nearly in Miller’s back yard, at
Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Perry committed his now-infamous gaffe.

Asked about his plan to
eliminate three federal agencies, the governor struggled to name the second and
drew a blank on the third. “Oops,” he said, as he apologized for the
memory lapse.

His campaign team later
blamed the candidate’s fogginess on medication he was taking following back
surgery, but just two months later Perry’s plummeting prospects led to a
distant fifth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. He tried to recover but his
precipitous slide soon led to the abandonment of his White House bid.

A silly curse — or something worse?

All of this should make each of the top
advisers in the Fiorina camp a bit nervous – if they’re the suspicious type. Fans
of politics and sports might equate Miller’s embrace as the equivalent of an
appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Yet, the Candy Curse carries a
bit of substance.

 

Miller, who’s now contemplating a run for governor, not only chose
Giuliani and Perry, she served as their Michigan campaign chair in ’08 and ’12,
respectively. After the Giuliani campaign implosion, the congresswoman emerged
as an outspoken supporter of GOP nominee John McCain. Miller was delighted with
McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate and she served as a member
of the Palin “Truth Squad” in the months leading up to the ’08 election.

But those efforts were
quashed when McCain made a shocking decision to pull the plug on his campaign
in Michigan, a key swing state, several weeks before the November vote.

Lead, follow or get out of the way

As for the Fiorina
endorsement, that announcement came just days after the Michigan GOP conference
on Mackinac Island where the former Hewlett-Packard CEO made quite a splash.
According to some press reports, Miller seemed almost starry eyed when
marveling at Fiorina’s rock star status on the island, particularly at the
packed party honoring the congresswoman where Fiorina was the featured guest.

But Miller’s attraction to
Fiorina, beyond the former business exec’s strong-woman persona, may lie in the
candidate’s non-stop use of the magic word — leadership. Miller loves
leadership qualities.

When the lawmaker endorsed
Giuliani eight years ago, she praised him as “a true leader.”

When she backed Perry four
years later, she said he was “the leader we need to get Michigan and America
working again.”

In her video announcement
last week embracing Fiorina, she said the candidate offers “bold, decisive
leadership.”

In the end, Giuliani and
Perry were leaders in the polls who each fell on their face. It remains to be
seen if Fiorina is more than the flavor of the month or if she too, like many
surging presidential contenders on the well-worn campaign trail before her,
ends up face down in the mud.

 

 

 

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