A sharp tongue and a hot microphone is a bad combination for a politician. Too bad U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina had to learn that lesson the hard way. Now her trash talk about Barbara Boxer's old fashioned hairstyle is taking her off message and raising old stereotypes about "catty", competitive women. Fiorina didn't spare her GOP friend and gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman either, questioning Whitman's choice of media interviews.
Shouldn't someone on Fiorina's team have helped her out by reminding her she was in a TV studio, wearing a microphone? Before, during and after a broadcast interview, an experienced interviewee will always assume her mic is open. Fiorina isn't the first politician to get burned and she won't be the last. But this kind of silliness is a sad way to start off the general election campaign.
Senator Boxer took advantage of this misstep; saying while Fiorina is talking about hair, she is talking about jobs. Spoken like a media pro.
For more media tips