--- description: "Would you ask a male candidate that question?" Fiorina responded when asked if she was running for vice president. title: Carly Fiorina Calls Foul on Vice President Question image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb829e7a32b4161c2/69878425cd1bba09746f5bf3/carly-fiorina-time100-poll.jpg?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Politics](/section/politics/) ## Politics Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Carly Fiorina Calls Foul on Vice President Question  by [Tessa Berenson](/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 4, 2015 8:57 PM CUT  Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation, waits to be interviewed at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Md. on Feb. 26, 2015. Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation, waits to be interviewed at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Md. on Feb. 26, 2015.Nicholas Kamm—AFP/Getty Images  by [Tessa Berenson](/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 4, 2015 8:57 PM CUT Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina pushed back against a question about whether she’s running for vice president, implying it was sexist during an interview with Katie Couric on [Yahoo News](http://news.yahoo.com/carly-fiorina-interview-with-katie-couric-200949497.html "undefined"). Noting her low polling numbers, Couric asked Fiorina if she was actually running for the No. 2 spot on the ticket. “Oh Katie, would you ask a male candidate that question?” she responded. Though it hasn’t been asked much so far this year, the question has been posed to male candidates in the past. In 2004, the [New York _Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/national/07POIN.html "undefined") called it the “worst question” of the primaries because it was asked so much of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards: “John Edwards gave the same boring answer at every stop, but reporters never stopped asking it anyway: ‘Are you running for vice president?'” (After all that, Edwards ended up as John Kerry’s running mate, disproving the idea that it was a bad question.) Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was also dogged by the question in 2008. “Why does everyone always ask me that?” he [responded in a video interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nq4dVlKmeE "undefined"), laughing somewhat bitterly. “No, I don’t want to be vice president.” And though it hasn’t been posed to former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who’s polling well behind Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton, the idea that he’s [actually running for No. 2](http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/09/martin-omalley-the-man-who-would-be-vice "undefined") has been raised. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3845983/carly-fiorina-vice-president/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3845983/carly-fiorina-vice-president/"},"headline":"Carly Fiorina Calls Foul on Vice President Question","datePublished":"2015-05-04T20:57:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T06:55:03.139Z","description":"The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard announced her candidacy Monday","url":"https://time.com/3845983/carly-fiorina-vice-president/","keywords":["2016 Election topic","Martin O'malley","Carly Fiorina"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb829e7a32b4161c2/69878425cd1bba09746f5bf3/carly-fiorina-time100-poll.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb829e7a32b4161c2/69878425cd1bba09746f5bf3/carly-fiorina-time100-poll.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation, waits to be interviewed at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Md. on Feb. 26, 2015.","caption":"Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation, waits to be interviewed at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Md. on Feb. 26, 2015.","creditText":"Nicholas Kamm—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3845983/carly-fiorina-vice-president/","name":"Carly Fiorina Calls Foul on Vice President Question"}}]}] ```