The above New Year’s Day tweet was issued by Republican Presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina, now campaigning in Iowa for February’s caucuses, as Stanford and Iowa prepared to do battle in the Rose Bowl. (It was a rout: Iowa got clobbered.)
Fiorina is a Stanford alum, and the tweet backfired, it seemed, with many on Twitter finding the tweet revealing, and not at all in a good way.
Are there any plausible translations of the tweet that reflect well on Carly’s character? Let’s see:
“Just so you know: you can’t count on my loyalty. Family, friend, country, alma mater—I’ll abandon you whenever it strikes me as being to my benefit.”
“Integrity? What’s ‘integrity’?”
“Oh, I’m not really going to be rooting for Iowa, but nobody will know one way or the other as long as I don’t show up at the game with pom-pons, so this seemed like a useful lie.”
“Iowa Republicans are such corn-fed saps that they’ll favor someone for President who brazenly panders to them like this.”
“Iowans are idiots, and not having graduated from Stanford, I can manipulate them with ease.”
“I’m an idiot, because I think this tweet is a brilliant idea and that no one will see through it.”
Did I miss any? To be fair, I suppose it is possible that the tweet was sincere, and really meant…
“Even though I am a proud Stanford grad and love the school, I detest college football, was treated cruelly by the jocks there, and thus will be rooting for Iowa in honor of the wonderful people I have met here, who unlike Donald Trump and the ladies on ‘The View,’ have never made fun of my face.”
Nah.
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Pointer and Source: Mediaite
Ethics Alarms 
Didn’t someone write a book about this phenomenon? Title: I Have Always Been A Yankees Fan?
That was Hillary, of course, in her infamous dishonest pandering while carpetbagging her way to becoming Senator. See, Hillary’s little lies are just small, and it’s unfair to complain about them—thousands of them, one by one, each insignificant—after all, it’s only one “mistake.” Her big lies, well, they are old news and only haters keep bringing them up, and her new big lies aren’t as bad as the old ones we’ve agreed don’t matter and we should move on from.
Lies from Republicans, however, are smoking gun evidence of the depraved nature of the entire party and the gun-toting, racist, God-spouting morons who support it.
Tell me, would you find it strange to discover that I was born in Chicago, root for the Cubs (to my eternal disappointment) and in the American league favor first the Red Sox and second whatever team is playing against the White Sox?
On to Fiorina, let’s try to be charitable. Perhaps a cousin or nephew plays for Iowa? Perhaps she had a lot of money riding on the game? Whatever team she cheers for loses and she’s decided to wepaonize bad luck? She thought hawkeyes meant buckeyes and she really intended to pander for the general election not the primaries? Chose dare instead of truth? She had just watched Flash Gordon on cable and thought Haweyes were Hawkmen and how can you not cheer for BRIAN BLESSED? It was opposite day? The Anthony Weiner defence, she was hacked! Campaign is short of money, hopes to get free food at victory parties for Iowa staff. Thought she was cheering for Dr Benjamin Franklin Pierce to win the football game at the end of MASH, this indicates she supports unethically bringing in ringers (Oliver Harmon “Spearchucker” Jones) to win armature games, signature significance!
Great comment. Brava.
Maybe she was treated cruelly there. Stanford is a great university, but has become increasingly leftist over the years and full of “celebrities” like Chelsie Clinton.
In which case she was lying about loving her alma mater!
Looks like when I go to the polls next November I will not be casting a vote in the presidential race. I mean it is one thing to be facing the lesser of two evils, but something else to be facing the evil of two lessers.
Carly who?
It could be the last partly. The jocks were rude and she’d root for the Yankees if they were playing the Stanford football team. Spite can be a powerful motivator for some people. (but someone that spiteful should be kept away from power, so this interpretation also doesn’t reflect well)
“I’m subtly making an allusion to the coming caucus that I hope I win! (Haha!)”
Exactly what I thought she might have meant, Tex. Do Texans (native here) think alike? HAHAHAHA. No, really… I just think she’s so thick she can’t see ANY consequences to any missteps. Sigh.
I just think Texans must be a little more enlightened or inspired. But that could be confirmation bias.
My first thought upon reading the tweet was “people take this shit (college football) way too seriously”.
Other than the fact that it cripples the players, warps the budgets of colleges and corrupts the culture, of course…
There’s also a down-side…
I’d say that’s a result of taking it too seriously.
If it received the coverage and support that, say, the chess team does, it would be just another extracurricular activity, more effort would be spent on keeping players safe (since it is now about the students and not the money – this based on first hand experience with martial arts at the college level), and no politicians would be talking about it. 🙂
Never been to Iowa, huh Alex? Or any Big 10 state.
I’m in Pac12-land and I’m that’s enough to amaze me at the level of craziness. 🙂
Im not disagreeing that people do (check out the link at the bottom for an interesting read about misplaced priorities in college athletics), but what in particular about her tweet caused you to think that? All she said was “Im rooting for a particular team to win”.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/misplaced-priorities-in-college-sports/2015/12/26/457528c2-a9a1-11e5-9b92-dea7cd4b1a4d_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Not what she said, Chris, but that people care about who roots for whom. Of course, I don’t think the issue has anything do with college football. It’s about cynicism and phonies.
I still think it’s a subtle jab at herself knowing her odds at the coming caucuses…
In which case is still reveals a type of incompetence…that she ought to pull out of the race.
Could it be just a tweet with a wink?
Or is it really a tweet of signature significance as suggested by the devastating criticism of Jack?
Probably so, but would you consider the possibility that in some stations, positions and circumstances in life, the appropriateness of some things changes?
Yes, I agree with that possibility. Reminds me of “Ich bin ein Berliner”.