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Carly Fiorina Emerges as a G.O.P. Weapon Against ‘War on Women’ Charge
New York Times
Amy Chozick and Trip Gabrielaug
8/12/2015
Excerpt:
This week, Donald J. Trump said that listening to Carly Fiorina, the only woman competing for the Republican presidential nomination, gave him “a massive headache.”
It was music to Mrs. Fiorina’s ears.
For months, the former Hewlett-Packard executive has tried to gain traction by pointedly attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton. But Mrs. Fiorina’s candidacy did not start to sizzle until her performance at last week’s second-tier Republican debate, where viewers realized that as the sole woman in a 17-candidate primary field, she was singularly qualified to stand up to Mr. Trump.
It is not a role Mrs. Fiorina necessarily wants to emphasize. “I don’t spend very much of my campaign time talking or thinking about Donald Trump,” she said in an interview Wednesday. But it is one she has embraced with the same fervor that she has employed against Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic Party front-runner.
“Women understood” that Mr. Trump’s attack the day after the debate on the Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, making a reference to bleeding that many people thought was an allusion to menstruation, was sexist, Mrs. Fiorina told a visibly squeamish Jake Tapper of CNN. “I’ve had lots of men imply that I was unfit for decision-making because maybe I was having my period. So I’ll say it, O.K?”
In a crowded Republican field, Mrs. Fiorina has delivered the most forceful and succinct denunciation of Mr. Trump’s comments, which sent a shudder through a party concerned that it would reinforce perceptions that it was increasingly out of touch with female voters.
Now, many Republicans, preparing to potentially confront Mrs. Clinton in a general election, are looking anew at Mrs. Fiorina, who rose from being a secretary to running the giant technology company HP, as the party’s weapon to counter the perception that it is waging a “war on women.”
“People feel Carly has clearly demonstrated she is a very powerful operator, has a lot of strengths of conviction and is willing to take Hillary — and now even Trump — on very directly,” said Katie Packer Gage, a political strategist who focuses on helping Republicans connect with women.
Asked whether she was willing to play the role of telegenic poster girl of the Republican presidential field, Mrs. Fiorina said, “I know Hillary Clinton wants to paint the entire Republican Party with the broad brush of Donald Trump’s comments, but it’s not clear to me that Donald Trump is a Republican.”
Even Republicans who have embraced Mrs. Fiorina in recent days — and expect her to earn a place in the top tier at the next debate on Sept. 16 — privately concur she is an imperfect candidate. A single previous campaign, for the United States Senate from California in 2010, ended in a nearly double-digit defeat. Her corporate resume is notable for her firing as chief executive of HP — a humiliation that Mrs. Fiorina tries to explain as the price of bold leadership.
She is already being pressed about the 30,000 layoffs at HP under her watch. Similar criticism wounded Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, whose career at Bain — and its deals that resulted in layoffs — exposed him to Democratic attacks that he did not care about the middle class.
Asked about the layoffs while she was chief executive, Mrs. Fiorina said she would take a similar approach to the federal government. “I do think there are a lot of people who think it would be a good thing if the federal government were more effective, more efficient and a lot less bloated,” she said.
It is unclear how much her message will resonate with women. Mrs. Fiorina once said her experience proved the glass ceiling was obsolete, and she has defined feminism as “a left-leaning political ideology” that pits “women against men” and is “used as a political weapon to win elections.”
In the interview, Mrs. Fiorina said, “As a woman I am insulted when I hear somebody talk about ‘women’s issues,’ ” adding, “Every issue is a women’s issue.”
Early in her candidacy Mrs. Fiorina, whose corporate leadership style has been described as brash, proved eager to sharply criticize Mrs. Clinton, while other candidates hesitated. Her gender provided a shield from what many Republicans assumed would be repercussions against a man attacking Mrs. Clinton so early and often.
The attention earned Mrs. Fiorina a special kind of support: donations from Republicans who did not consider her their first choice, but who viewed her as an important voice on a male-dominated stage. These included a “super PAC” that has been supporting Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, which gave $500,000 to a “super PAC” backing Mrs. Fiorina.
At least for now, Mrs. Fiorina said she was fine being a second choice. “I have heard donors say, ‘You know, I’m supporting someone else but I want to be supportive of you, as well,’ ” she said.
Now, strategists seeing no probable path for Mrs. Fiorina to win the nomination said she stood to benefit, with the potential to weaken Mr. Trump.
“Donors have looked at her as the answer to Hillary, but I think a lot more donors will now see her as the answer to Donald Trump,” said Kellyanne Conway, a Republican strategist.
Mrs. Fiorina said her campaign was seeing an “uptick” in donations, but declined to give specifics. Early on, Mrs. Fiorina decided to outsource much of the traditionally expensive work of campaigning, like field organizing, to a “super PAC” that has already raised $3 million for her.
The campaign is bare bones, with no paid pollsters or senior strategists. Mrs. Fiorina writes all of her own speeches, including the zingers against Mrs. Clinton, which are repeated like bullet-points of a corporate PowerPoint presentation. She also handles her own debate preparations.
In Cleveland, she said Mrs. Clinton “lies about Benghazi” and “lies about her emails,” two talking points she repeated in a testy post-debate exchange with the MSNBC host Chris Matthews. “How many of you would like to see me debate Hillary Clinton?” she asked to roars of approval at a campaign stop in South Carolina on Sunday.
A spokeswoman for Mrs. Clinton, Jennifer Palmieri, called Mrs. Fiorina’s attacks on Mrs. Clinton in the debate “particularly devoid of substance.”
After the debate, Mrs. Fiorina, 60, traveled to a gathering of conservative activists in Atlanta over the weekend, where she received standing ovations. “The crowds are bigger. People are excited,” Mrs. Fiorina said.
Mrs. Fiorina “leads on Trump and the others know they can follow,” said Erick Erickson of RedState.com., the organizer of the event. “I think Carly emboldens them to take action.”
..........................................
View the complete article, including images, at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/us...arge.html?_r=0
New York Times
Amy Chozick and Trip Gabrielaug
8/12/2015
Excerpt:
This week, Donald J. Trump said that listening to Carly Fiorina, the only woman competing for the Republican presidential nomination, gave him “a massive headache.”
It was music to Mrs. Fiorina’s ears.
For months, the former Hewlett-Packard executive has tried to gain traction by pointedly attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton. But Mrs. Fiorina’s candidacy did not start to sizzle until her performance at last week’s second-tier Republican debate, where viewers realized that as the sole woman in a 17-candidate primary field, she was singularly qualified to stand up to Mr. Trump.
It is not a role Mrs. Fiorina necessarily wants to emphasize. “I don’t spend very much of my campaign time talking or thinking about Donald Trump,” she said in an interview Wednesday. But it is one she has embraced with the same fervor that she has employed against Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic Party front-runner.
“Women understood” that Mr. Trump’s attack the day after the debate on the Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, making a reference to bleeding that many people thought was an allusion to menstruation, was sexist, Mrs. Fiorina told a visibly squeamish Jake Tapper of CNN. “I’ve had lots of men imply that I was unfit for decision-making because maybe I was having my period. So I’ll say it, O.K?”
In a crowded Republican field, Mrs. Fiorina has delivered the most forceful and succinct denunciation of Mr. Trump’s comments, which sent a shudder through a party concerned that it would reinforce perceptions that it was increasingly out of touch with female voters.
Now, many Republicans, preparing to potentially confront Mrs. Clinton in a general election, are looking anew at Mrs. Fiorina, who rose from being a secretary to running the giant technology company HP, as the party’s weapon to counter the perception that it is waging a “war on women.”
“People feel Carly has clearly demonstrated she is a very powerful operator, has a lot of strengths of conviction and is willing to take Hillary — and now even Trump — on very directly,” said Katie Packer Gage, a political strategist who focuses on helping Republicans connect with women.
Asked whether she was willing to play the role of telegenic poster girl of the Republican presidential field, Mrs. Fiorina said, “I know Hillary Clinton wants to paint the entire Republican Party with the broad brush of Donald Trump’s comments, but it’s not clear to me that Donald Trump is a Republican.”
Even Republicans who have embraced Mrs. Fiorina in recent days — and expect her to earn a place in the top tier at the next debate on Sept. 16 — privately concur she is an imperfect candidate. A single previous campaign, for the United States Senate from California in 2010, ended in a nearly double-digit defeat. Her corporate resume is notable for her firing as chief executive of HP — a humiliation that Mrs. Fiorina tries to explain as the price of bold leadership.
She is already being pressed about the 30,000 layoffs at HP under her watch. Similar criticism wounded Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, whose career at Bain — and its deals that resulted in layoffs — exposed him to Democratic attacks that he did not care about the middle class.
Asked about the layoffs while she was chief executive, Mrs. Fiorina said she would take a similar approach to the federal government. “I do think there are a lot of people who think it would be a good thing if the federal government were more effective, more efficient and a lot less bloated,” she said.
It is unclear how much her message will resonate with women. Mrs. Fiorina once said her experience proved the glass ceiling was obsolete, and she has defined feminism as “a left-leaning political ideology” that pits “women against men” and is “used as a political weapon to win elections.”
In the interview, Mrs. Fiorina said, “As a woman I am insulted when I hear somebody talk about ‘women’s issues,’ ” adding, “Every issue is a women’s issue.”
Early in her candidacy Mrs. Fiorina, whose corporate leadership style has been described as brash, proved eager to sharply criticize Mrs. Clinton, while other candidates hesitated. Her gender provided a shield from what many Republicans assumed would be repercussions against a man attacking Mrs. Clinton so early and often.
The attention earned Mrs. Fiorina a special kind of support: donations from Republicans who did not consider her their first choice, but who viewed her as an important voice on a male-dominated stage. These included a “super PAC” that has been supporting Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, which gave $500,000 to a “super PAC” backing Mrs. Fiorina.
At least for now, Mrs. Fiorina said she was fine being a second choice. “I have heard donors say, ‘You know, I’m supporting someone else but I want to be supportive of you, as well,’ ” she said.
Now, strategists seeing no probable path for Mrs. Fiorina to win the nomination said she stood to benefit, with the potential to weaken Mr. Trump.
“Donors have looked at her as the answer to Hillary, but I think a lot more donors will now see her as the answer to Donald Trump,” said Kellyanne Conway, a Republican strategist.
Mrs. Fiorina said her campaign was seeing an “uptick” in donations, but declined to give specifics. Early on, Mrs. Fiorina decided to outsource much of the traditionally expensive work of campaigning, like field organizing, to a “super PAC” that has already raised $3 million for her.
The campaign is bare bones, with no paid pollsters or senior strategists. Mrs. Fiorina writes all of her own speeches, including the zingers against Mrs. Clinton, which are repeated like bullet-points of a corporate PowerPoint presentation. She also handles her own debate preparations.
In Cleveland, she said Mrs. Clinton “lies about Benghazi” and “lies about her emails,” two talking points she repeated in a testy post-debate exchange with the MSNBC host Chris Matthews. “How many of you would like to see me debate Hillary Clinton?” she asked to roars of approval at a campaign stop in South Carolina on Sunday.
A spokeswoman for Mrs. Clinton, Jennifer Palmieri, called Mrs. Fiorina’s attacks on Mrs. Clinton in the debate “particularly devoid of substance.”
After the debate, Mrs. Fiorina, 60, traveled to a gathering of conservative activists in Atlanta over the weekend, where she received standing ovations. “The crowds are bigger. People are excited,” Mrs. Fiorina said.
Mrs. Fiorina “leads on Trump and the others know they can follow,” said Erick Erickson of RedState.com., the organizer of the event. “I think Carly emboldens them to take action.”
..........................................
View the complete article, including images, at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/us...arge.html?_r=0