While waiting for former HP CEO Carly Fiorina to follow former eBay CEO Meg Whitman's speech with her own, MSNBC's Internet-only live video feed of the Republican National Convention caught this footage of Republican square-staters grooving to 1982's rockabilly hit, "Rock This Town," by The Stray Cats. The clip has a cautionary message for Obama's Facebook-generation supporters: When their candidate says he's "postpartisan," potential voters closing in on AARP membership clearly hear "postboomers."

A consolation prize for raising millions of dollars from their Fortune 500 rolodexes: Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina will speak at the Republican National Convention tonight. Both also made Republican presidential candidate John McCain's list of 20 potential vice presidential candidates, aides told the New York Times. Like McCain's real first choice, Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman, neither Whitman nor Fiorina would have satisfied the conservative Christian base quite like McCain's eventual choice, the pro-life, pro-guns governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. Also, neither looks quite so much like the adorable Liz Lemon, am I right? Fiorina has already gone on TV to attack Obama for attacking Palin, but Whitman kind of sounds less jazzed by the Palin pick. "John McCain made the choice that's right for him,'' Whitman told reporters Tuesday.Technically, Whitman and Fiorina's speeches tonight will focus on "prosperity" and McCain's economic plans for the country. But really, each is auditioning for her next job. Fiorina is said to be eying a cabinet post. Whitman may want to run for California governor in 2010. The Mercury News reports Whitman has already hired Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign strategist and a former adviser to Arnold Schwarzenegger,. (Photo by AP/Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate John McCain is set to announce his VP today and the New York Times says he's ruled out former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and Alaska governor Sarah Palin as possible running mates. (Update: McCain ended up picking Palin after all.) Does that mean McCain will go with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, whom he recently described as one of the three wisest people he knows? A Democratic member of Congress thinks so, according to the Atlantic Monthly.Of course there are many Democratic and Republican whackjobs in Congress who know nothing about anything. I'm more inclined to believe McCain will pick Republican-in-Democrat's-clothing senator Joe Lieberman than an executive from a stumbling company whose position on things like abortion won't help McCain with the right-wing Republicans he needs to turn out in November. Still, Whitman wouldn't be a bad pick, would she? (Photo by AP/Dharapak)

I always knew Meg Whitman reminded me of someone. Our ruthless commenter spells out why she could cut it as McCain's VP:

Retired eBay CEO and McCain campaign national cochair Meg Whitman will speak on the second day of next month's Republican National Convention. The second day — dedicated to the theme of prosperity in tough times, according to a press release — is also the same day McCain's yet-to-be-named running mate is scheduled to speak. McCain could do a lot worse than to ask Whitman to take the podium for that time slot. Some think he's seriously considering it.Asked recently who were the three wisest people he knows in his life, McCain included Whitman in his answer. McCain's stump speech also regularly includes a claim that 1.3 million people make a living off of eBay and that proves America is headed in the right direction. Of course, some of those 1.3 million people are particularly unhappy with eBay these days, complaining as the auction giant messes with its fees in an attempt to become more like Amazon. Whitman's aggressive stance on the H-1B visas for foreign workers — she thinks there should be more of them — would hurt McCain with the midwestern xenophobes who dread a national anthem sung in Spanish. But then again those people don't like the moderate-on-immigration McCain much already. If Obama doesn't choose Hillary Clinton, it would also be a tactical grab for some of disaffected centrists who might admire a woman who played hardball while leading eBay for 10 years. (Photo by AP/Dharapak)

Craigslist has filed suit against eBay in San Francisco County Superior Court, alleging trademark infringement, breach of fiduciary duty, anti-competitve trade practices and deceptive advertising. Why California? Because the state has some of the strictest antitrust and competition trade laws in the country. Craigslist is asking the court to award damages and force eBay to divest from the online classifieds site. Also alleged? That eBay was a big meanie. The best parts:

According to the New York Times, when Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and his team were told that Microsoft was walking away from its $47.5 billion offer to buy the company "high-fives were exchanged." Today, analysts expect Yahoo's value to plummet to $30 billion. Gimme an O! Gimme an O! Gimme a P! Gimme an S! — Yahoo employees, many of them suddenly poorer, told Kara Swisher they want Yang back on the sidelines where such cheerleading belongs. Yang's high-five display "shows a complete lack of connection to the balance of the company," one Yahoo exec told Swisher. Another told her:

The text of eBay's complaint filed in a Delaware court [PDF] has made its way online, and in it, eBay "seeks equitable and legal relief" from Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and founder Craig Newmark for:

Meg Whitman isn't losing any sleep over eBay's role in prepping Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui for his rampage that left 33 dead. Asked what was her worst moment at eBay, Meg confides to confides to Portfolio: "The site outage in 1999," adding that she had to sleep on a cot "for multiple nights." Whitman goes on to give eBay kudos for being "incredibly vigilant around trust and safety and keeping the .01% [of customers who aren't 'basically good'] in line," a boast made all the more ridiculous by the company's recent defense of its sale of combustion-enhancing fertilizer to troubled teen Ryan Schallenberger. (The gist of eBay's defense: Ammonium nitrate isn't just used to blow up high schools and federal buildings.) Seeking Alpha has a complete transcript of the interview, in which you'll find these nuggets Portfolio's editors skipped:

Is former eBay CEO Meg Whitman impacting John McCain's immigration policy? Currently, the U.S. government refuses to raise the cap on H-1Bs, the visas which allow foreign engineers to work at American companies. This despite the fact that By 2010, Asians will account for 90 percent of the world's engineers. In this clip McCain says he'll fix that problem. Though not without due concern for the terrorists, of course.

Who's the richest billionaire in the Bay Area? No surprise here: Oracle founder and yachting enthusiast Larry Ellison, is the 14th wealthiest in the world (which must grate on him something fierce) with $25 billion. Trailing him are a trio of Googlers, Larry and Sergey with almost $19 billion each and CEO Eric Schmidt with $6.6 billion. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the youngest billionaire is pegged at $1.5 billion and outgoing eBay CEO Meg Whitman, one of only 99 women on the list, has $1.3 billion. Other local billionaires include Steve Jobs, Charles Schwab and George Lucas. Grab the full list from Forbes.

With Romney dropping out of the race, his cofinance chair, retiring eBay CEO Meg Whitman has been outbid on a Cabinet position in the Romney Administration. But what about running for governor of California? Retired businesspeople need to find something to do with their time. Sitting around the house after running a company 24/7 is all too intolerable. Yes, Whitman smashed rumors of a 2010 gubernatorial run in California, but many, many, wannabe politicians say that before jumping into a race.

eBay's new CEO, John Donahoe, got a hefty payoff just for taking the job. Docu-Drama reports that his total take comes to $25 million, including a $15 million "promotion bonus" in the form of options and restricted stock. Then there's outgoing CEO Meg Whitman, who made a half-billion dollars in stock sales over her tenure, including $100 million in the past 5 months. Whitman gets free office space and secretarial services, and as a special advisor, she stays on the payroll — which means her options will continue to vest. Handy, considering so many of them are underwater.

Could retiring eBay CEO Meg Whitman run to be the next governor of California, as the Los Angeles Times speculated recently? Absolutely not, she told managers at the San Jose-based auction giant recently. But as that rumor was quashed, another one arose: That she's angling to be a Cabinet secretary in a future Mitt Romney presidency. Romney's campaign is still seen as a longshot. But the two share close ties. Whitman is Romney's finance cochair. And they both belong to a shadowy, secretive cult with vast, poorly understood powers — that is to say, they're both former management consultants.

The Los Angeles Times reports that "Whitman has talked with top Republicans about the possibility of a run for California governor in 2010, according to three operatives who have had discussions with her. Whitman is said to be asking detailed questions about the logistics of a run and the effect she could have as governor." The eBay/PayPal punchlines here are so obvious, we'll leave them to you.

eBay employees have just received an email from longtime CEO Meg Whitman announcing her retirement. She joined the company 10 years ago, when it had a mere 30 employees; it now has 14,000. John Donahoe, as expected, will succeed her as CEO. Rajiv Dutta, currently CEO of PayPal, will take Donahoe's job as head of eBay's auctions business. Whitman will remain on the board. Strange, that: In an email to employees, Whitman says it's "time for a new leadership team," and yet all the same faces are staying in place. Here's her full memo to employees.

eBay CEO Meg Whitman could announce plans to retire as soon as today's earnings call. The most likely candidate to replace her? Consensus suggests auctions chief John Donahoe. But how'd that happen? A quick look at other viable contenders shows Donahoe's candidacy owes much to the process of elimination. Here's how the discarded contenders stack up.

At last, eBay CEO Meg Whitman is preparing to leave, the Wall Street Journal reports. It's about time, and even Whitman would agree, having said that no one should stay CEO of a company for more than 10 years. That deadline comes in March, and Tuesday's earnings call are as good a time to tell shareholders as any. Her likely replacement, John Donahoe, won't be much of a change: If he is tapped as CEO, power will be ceremoniously transferred one ex-management consultant to another. Is it any wonder eBay is bleeding risktakers and creative talent?

For the first holiday season ever, more Americans visited Amazon.com than eBay last December, the New York Times reports, citing numbers from Nielsen. eBay still trumped Amazon in time spent, or "engagement," and total pageviews — all of that auction-watching, you know. And it's important to remember that traffic without transactions doesn't do either site any good. But the news can't be a comfort the eBay CEO Meg Whitman, here pictured with Mitt Romney (far left) and some guy.

"The Wall St. buzz is that msft and yhoo are bidding for eBay. My source tells me that Yahoo! has bid 1.76 shares for eBay ($40-41) and is expected to win at that price." So writes Scot Wingo, the plugged-in CEO of ChannelAdvisor, an auctions-software maker in which eBay owns a minority stake. Let's dissect that rumor, shall we?