Former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina who was once considered the most powerful businesswoman in America and is now a top McCain economic adviser., and is rumored to being short-listed as McCains possible running mate.

Fiorina’s strength: she is smart and articulate, comfortable in the media spotlight and looks like a national political leader. She is comfortable talking about the economy and about business, two things that McCain doesn’t deal with well.

Downside: Everything that happened at Hewlett-Packard during her term of employment at the company, whether involving sales, employees or strategic business decisions, would become fair game. And it’s not only her years at HP that would invite scrutiny. Her years at AT&T and Lucent Technologies would also come under scrutiny, as would the companies on whose boards she serves.

But it would be interesting to see a McCain – Fiorina tandem against Obama – Clinton or an Obama – Bill Gates perhaps.