Eh, it's debatable that HP is a "middling" company, but it's also largely irrelevant. Fiorina saw HP through the dot com blowup. The fact HP survived at all is no mean feat.
Fiorina started as a secretary and worked her way up to the very top of the ladder at AT&T/Lucent and then HP. I don't know much about her politics, but her business chops are solid.