Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, one of the nation’s best-known business leaders, is taking on a new high-profile job as an advocate for presumptive GOP nominee John McCain and the Republican Party.

Fiorina was named Friday by the Republican National Committee as a leading surrogate for the McCain campaign and as chairman of fundraising for get-out-the-vote efforts. The RNC’s carefully targeted campaign to boost turnout was a key to President Bush’s victory in 2004. As a longtime backer of McCain, Fiorina “will travel all over the country, speaking to all sorts of people as a strong advocate for our economic principles,” said Frank Donatelli, a veteran GOP strategist and lobbyist who became the new deputy chairman of the RNC.

Fiorina is the second Silicon Valley titan to assume an influential post in the McCain campaign.

Cisco CEO John Chambers, who also is close to McCain, serves as a finance co-chairman and advises the candidate on tech issues.

Fiorina stumped for McCain in the Michigan and Florida primaries and said she got to know him “as a man of great conviction, a principled pragmatist who knows how to get things done.” McCain relied on Fiorina, letting her answer questions at town halls on economic issues.

McCain made national security the centerpiece of his campaign as he secured the nomination with a string of primary victories. But as economic woes mount, including Friday’s announcement of the worst job loss for the nation since 2003, the future of the economy has become a dominant issue.

Fiorina will help shape McCain’s economic message beyond the broad themes of lower taxes and fewer restrictions on business.

The campaign will develop “a more fulsome program over the next several weeks,” Fiorina said. The campaign, she said, will promote polices that help small businesses and “make a greater investment in green technology.”

During six years at HP, Fiorina became used to the spotlight as one of the few female CEOs of a major corporation. She was a leader on tech issues and defended HP for sending some jobs overseas.

In 2004, she was part of the tech sector’s efforts to counter criticism of “off-shoring” jobs to India and China. “There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore,” she said at a Washington press conference.

Critics of off-shoring called the remark insensitive, but Fiorina said she was talking about the need for improvements in education, research and job-training to compete effectively in the global economy.

She was forced out of HP in 2005 after long-simmering board and shareholder dissatisfaction exploded into a rancorous fight over the direction of the company.

She has become active in the GOP, worked on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s transition team in 2003 and has been mentioned as a potential candidate for California governor or even as a running mate for McCain. She splits her time between Los Altos Hills and Washington and in October became a commentator on the Fox Business Network.

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AP-NY-03-07-08 1918EST

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