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By John McCain's own admission, the economy isn't his strong suit. The ace up his sleeve may be a polished corporate executive ranked six times as the U.S.'s most powerful businesswoman, who's also among the most controversial.

Carly Fiorina, 53, who ran Hewlett-Packard Co., the largest U.S. corporation headed by a woman, joined McCain's bid for the Republican presidential nomination in March 2007, sticking with him even as the campaign faltered. This March, as he clinched the nomination, she reaped the reward and was appointed chairwoman of Victory '08, the public face of, and force behind, Republican efforts to win the White House.

Arizona Senator McCain, 71, this week praised Fiorina for playing “a vital role in the leadership of my campaign,'' saying he's particularly “grateful'' for her economic advice.

Fiorina is no stranger to television cameras. As chief executive officer of Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard, she became the telegenic face, in ads and in interviews, of what was then the second-largest computer maker. She also presided over the contentious $18.9 billion acquisition of rival Compaq Computer Corp., thousands of layoffs and the dot-com boom and bust, before being ousted in 2005 in a struggle with her board after the company's shares plunged 55 percent.

Months later, her name was floated for the top job at the World Bank; she was passed over for Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

These days, she is equally at ease fielding voter questions, cultivating donors and helping the candidate articulate a platform of low taxes and small government.

`Economic Summit'

Fiorina accompanies McCain from Rust-Belt cities to corporate gatherings. In one week in April, she co-hosted a conference call for reporters previewing a McCain address in Pittsburgh on taxes, then moderated an “economic summit'' in Milwaukee, taking questions from leaders in business, education and mortgage lending. She advises the candidate on his economic message, often huddling with him on his campaign plane.

Fiorina outlined in an interview the vision she shares with McCain: keep taxes low to encourage small-business innovation and job creation; offer choice in education; retrain laid-off workers, and promote alternative energy — including nuclear power.

That vision also includes free trade; she said McCain believes trade creates jobs and spurs competitiveness among U.S. companies. “The protectionist rhetoric out of the Democratic Party terrifies business,'' she said.

`Natural Humility'

Fiorina's importance as an economic adviser looms large because of McCain's self-deprecating remarks about his lack of expertise on the issue. She dismissed those comments, which the candidate has made in a television debate, to reporters and in at least one town-hall meeting, as “a reflection of his natural humility.'' Most important, she said, “He knows the role of the government is to unleash the creativity of the American people.''

His campaign, in turn, is banking on her corporate experience, life story and communication skills to attract voters anxious about the economy, as well as women and business donors to McCain, who lags behind his Democratic rivals in fundraising and votes cast in primaries.

McCain has been criticized by women's groups for his anti- abortion views and opposition to equal-pay-for-equal-work legislation. Fiorina says he believes that women should be paid equally, though he doesn't think the government should legislate pay — the same reason he opposes increases in the minimum wage bad credit payday loan.

No Single Issue

Fiorina, the daughter of a federal judge, says that while she has always opposed abortion, the Republican Party has room for women on both sides of that issue. “Most women are not single-issue voters,'' she said.

She said “women-run small businesses are the fastest- growing sector of the economy'' and women inherit the overwhelming majority of bequeathed wealth, making them receptive to other issues that McCain champions: low taxes, portable health care, blocking Internet porn.

Fiorina, who joined AT&T as a trainee and rose to executive vice president before becoming a top executive at Lucent Technologies Inc., took over at Hewlett-Packard in 1999. Fortune magazine named her the most-powerful businesswoman in the U.S. during her entire tenure at Hewlett-Packard.

Still, she made enemies at the computer maker, particularly with her pursuit of Compaq, which some insiders said would disrupt Hewlett-Packard's corporate culture. Others derided her as all flash and no substance.

Her biggest critic at the time, Walter Hewlett, the son of the company's co-founder, said she engineered “a big, splashy'' merger “to distract people from the fact that she wasn't really able to get her job done.''

Share Price Doubles

The company has become the world's largest personal computer and printer-maker and its share price has doubled since she left — the fruits, say defenders and even some critics, of foundations she laid. Today, it's difficult to find a former adversary in Silicon Valley who will criticize her.

Tom Perkins, 76, a venture capitalist then on the Hewlett- Packard board whom Fiorina has said she considers the architect of her ouster, praised her “strategic mind'' and “persuasive powers,'' calling her a natural for politics.

Of the Compaq deal, Perkins said, “Looking back on it now, it was brilliant, and it wouldn't have happened without her.''

Pragmatist

Fiorina met McCain in 2000, when she testified before Congress against taxation of the Internet. She describes him as a pragmatist who's unafraid to take unpopular positions. She recalled the candidate contradicting a voter at a town-hall meeting who wanted to deport all undocumented immigrants, including the elderly mother of a soldier serving in Iraq.

“People actually recognize the difference between saying what's convenient and what is true,'' she said.

While McCain once opposed President George W. Bush's tax reductions and now wants to make them permanent, Fiorina insists he's “been entirely consistent in calling for tax cuts accompanied by cuts in government spending.'' That's something, she said, the Bush administration hasn't done, and the result is a record deficit.

She said McCain has also differed with Bush over the execution of the Iraq War, stem-cell research, global warming, worker retraining and overhauling the education system.

Though her name has been floated as a possible choice to run for the vice presidency, a Cabinet post or other top appointment is more likely, given that she's never run for office. And she doesn't rule out a political run of her own in the future.

She half-expected that her foray into politics would make her cynical; instead, she said she's come away with “renewed faith in democracy, when you get away from all the stuff that's driven by 24-hour news.''

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