Bootstraps by Prada

"Marty Wilson, who ran Fiorina’s campaign in 2010, points out that unlike Romney, Fiorina has the benefit of an up-by-the-bootstraps professional story that might help fend off the layoffs story line. Fiorina, the daughter of a federal judge and an artist, started out doing secretarial work before dedicating herself to marketing and sales at AT&T and Lucent Technologies and working her way up the corporate ladder."

 

What does it say that Mrs. Fiorina's former campaign manager fully believes in his/her heart of hearts that the average American will relate to Carly because she pulled herself up by her bootstraps?  Perhaps s/he should double check what the term normally implies.  

It typically isn't used to describe someone whose father was a professor at the University of Texas School of Law & later named dean of Duke University School of Law; who served as a Deputy Attorney General & finally a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

As for her story, yes - she worked as a receptionist.  For six months, between getting her under grad degree & her first Masters, and in that short period of time rose to broker.  At AT&T, she came on not as a lowly receptionist but as (some would say even lower) management trainee, selling telephone services to big federal agencies.  

Hardly the hardscrabble beginnings normally associated with "an up-by-the-bootstraps professional story."  If Carly epitomizes a bootstrap story, then they're bootstraps by Prada.