Carly the Communicator
In her impressive debate performance Wednesday night, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina deftly managed to back-foot the shameless Donald Trump for his jab at her looks, smoothly describe the geopolitics of the Middle East, and somehow link Iran and Planned Parenthood as two issues of “character” for the nation that garnered one of the loudest applause lines of the night.
Fiorina dominated the debate with a fluency and confidence that many of her rivals, far more seasoned in politics, were not able to muster. She also skillfully managed to interject herself in many of the exchanges, racking up the third most speaking minutes of any candidate. Her performance shows how far the former CEO has come since her failed and occasionally gaffe-filled 2010 run against California Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Back then, Fiorina was caught on a hot mic saying Boxer’s hair was “so yesterday,” opening up an attack from Boxer’s team that she was more preoccupied with hairstyles than policy. Two years earlier, when she was advising Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, she flubbed a TV interview when she said she didn’t believe McCain was qualified to be the CEO of a major corporation. She wasn’t allowed to do media interviews for the campaign after that.
This new, polished and confident Carly has internalized and learned from her earlier rookie mistakes.
“She is more sure-footed than she was in 2010, but that was her very first campaign,” says Ken Khachigian, a lawyer who advised the campaign then. “[That campaign] was like going to school and learning. It was an expensive education, but she learned a great deal.”
She’s also done her homework. After the Senate loss, she and her husband, Frank, moved from California to Northern Virginia where she’s been boning up on foreign and economic policy with the help of the American Enterprise Institute and other Washington think tanks. She has been living and breathing politics for the past few years.
But Khachigian says Fiorina was always in her element in forums and debates, even when she was a political novice.
“Remember, her background is out of sales; that’s how she made her way up in the business,” he said, referring to her 20 years at AT&T and Lucent Technologies before she was tapped to lead HP. “She’s used to being with people and convincing them and being persuasive.”
Jeff Corless, Fiorina’s political director in the Senate race, said he thought she did an excellent job deflecting Gov. Chris Christie’s attack on Fiorina and Trump for arguing over their resumes instead of focusing on the issues affecting America.
“She quickly turned that back around and did a fantastic job highlighting what was so important about talking about track records,” Corless said. Fiorina was too quick on her feet to let Christie define her alongside Trump as a self-obsessed and out-of-touch businesswoman.
“I just think it’s one of her natural talents — her ability to communicate, articulate messages,” Corless added.
She’s also used to picking herself up after blistering criticism and failure, which she did after her rough five-year tenure at HP, when the stock price dropped by half and she was ousted. Fiorina is nothing if not tough: She started her 2010 campaign against Boxer while still bald from chemotherapy undergone for breast cancer.
Fiorina shows a lawyer-like recall for facts and figures, which might hark back to her father, a conservative federal judge on the Ninth Circuit whom she cites as a big influence on her life. On the stump, Fiorina often makes fun of herself for majoring in medieval history and philosophy while at Stanford, which did not prepare her for any particular job out of college. She tried law school but dropped it.
Fiorina’s surprise domination of the debate graces front page after front page, with pundits predicting voters will respond and she’ll rise in the polls soon. In an appearance on “Morning Joe” Thursday, Fiorina said she was “gratified” by the widespread consensus that she had won the debate. “It was a really important opportunity to continue to introduce myself to the American people,” she said.
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(Cover tile photo: Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)
