As SFist mentioned yesterday, Hewlett-Packard went ahead and hired former Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman as their new CEO. The HP board went ahead and fired Leo Apotheker after just 11 months on the job. Prior a disastrous bid for California--she wasted "a record breaking $43 per voter to lose the California gubernatorial election," notes Ryan Tate--Whitman was once the CEO at eBay. She also once famously (and allegedly) shoved one of her employees.

As AP muses, "The management shake-up represents yet another turnaround strategy at one of Silicon Valley's oldest, but most publicly dysfunctional, firms." And how.