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Carly Fiorina, an Outsider Candidate Republican Insiders Can Love
Her Washington credentials that have won her fans inside the Beltway, even as she seeks the nomination with a strategy that makes the GOP establishment a frequent punching bag.
Bloomberg
Ben Brody
10/5/2015
Excerpts:
Carly Fiorina is looking like the insider's outsider candidate.
On the surface, it’s clear why the national political mood has swept her, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson to the top of Republican presidential polls. A former California technology executive, she has never held elected office, a profile that a plurality of Americans say they prefer to a candidate with gubernatorial or U.S. Senate experience.
Yet, as she recently demonstrated when otherwise-feuding Republican lawmakers showed up to see her on Capitol Hill, she also has Washington credentials that have won her fans inside the Beltway, even as she seeks the nomination with a strategy that makes the GOP establishment a frequent punching bag.
“I think she understands the way Washington works,” said Michigan Representative Candice Miller, who attended the meeting and recently became one of the first members of Congress to endorse Fiorina.
Miller rejected the idea that Fiorina is some kind of “creature of Washington,” but she has spurred big-time interest among those who walk the halls of Congress, judging by the 50 or so legislators who Miller said went to see her speak.
“Having been in Congress all these years, that’s a huge amount of members to take a look at a candidate—in the evening, after votes,” said Miller. “It was really the whole breadth of the Republican conference.”
Fiorina’s effort to appeal to the more ideological, conservative wing of the Republican Party shows in her stump speeches and platform.
“Ours was not intended to be a government governed by a professional political class,” she told a crowd of New Hampshire Republicans in April, a theme she has repeated throughout her campaign. “Sometimes people who have been inside a system for so long, they cannot see it for what it is anymore.”
She has proposed disruptive changes to Washington’s culture on issues such as hiring and budget negotiations, and she has capitalized on her outspoken criticism of Planned Parenthood by (carefully) supporting a strategy to force a government shutdown over public funding for the organization.1
Yet Fiorina is no political neophyte, either. The daughter of an influential federal judge, she served on advisory boards to the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency and hit the stump as a surrogate for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, hardly a darling of grassroots conservatives. She challenged Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California in 2010, raising almost $16 million and securing endorsements from Republican luminaries like former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former first lady Nancy Reagan for the unsuccessful effort. After that race, Fiorina and her husband moved to northern Virginia, on the outskirts of D.C.
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“If I had to pick, I would definitely put her more towards the inside, more towards the establishment,” said Drew Ryun, political director of the Madison Project, which has encouraged primary challenges to Republican lawmakers. “I think she’s definitely more from a corporate ideology and world view than the conservative grassroots has picked up on at this point.”
“She’s gotten away with great talking points,” Ryun said. “I think the more we find out about her, the more disenchanted with her the grassroots I think will become.”
.................................................. ...
View the complete article, including image, at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/ar...iders-can-love
Her Washington credentials that have won her fans inside the Beltway, even as she seeks the nomination with a strategy that makes the GOP establishment a frequent punching bag.
Bloomberg
Ben Brody
10/5/2015
Excerpts:
Carly Fiorina is looking like the insider's outsider candidate.
On the surface, it’s clear why the national political mood has swept her, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson to the top of Republican presidential polls. A former California technology executive, she has never held elected office, a profile that a plurality of Americans say they prefer to a candidate with gubernatorial or U.S. Senate experience.
Yet, as she recently demonstrated when otherwise-feuding Republican lawmakers showed up to see her on Capitol Hill, she also has Washington credentials that have won her fans inside the Beltway, even as she seeks the nomination with a strategy that makes the GOP establishment a frequent punching bag.
“I think she understands the way Washington works,” said Michigan Representative Candice Miller, who attended the meeting and recently became one of the first members of Congress to endorse Fiorina.
Miller rejected the idea that Fiorina is some kind of “creature of Washington,” but she has spurred big-time interest among those who walk the halls of Congress, judging by the 50 or so legislators who Miller said went to see her speak.
“Having been in Congress all these years, that’s a huge amount of members to take a look at a candidate—in the evening, after votes,” said Miller. “It was really the whole breadth of the Republican conference.”
Fiorina’s effort to appeal to the more ideological, conservative wing of the Republican Party shows in her stump speeches and platform.
“Ours was not intended to be a government governed by a professional political class,” she told a crowd of New Hampshire Republicans in April, a theme she has repeated throughout her campaign. “Sometimes people who have been inside a system for so long, they cannot see it for what it is anymore.”
She has proposed disruptive changes to Washington’s culture on issues such as hiring and budget negotiations, and she has capitalized on her outspoken criticism of Planned Parenthood by (carefully) supporting a strategy to force a government shutdown over public funding for the organization.1
Yet Fiorina is no political neophyte, either. The daughter of an influential federal judge, she served on advisory boards to the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency and hit the stump as a surrogate for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, hardly a darling of grassroots conservatives. She challenged Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California in 2010, raising almost $16 million and securing endorsements from Republican luminaries like former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former first lady Nancy Reagan for the unsuccessful effort. After that race, Fiorina and her husband moved to northern Virginia, on the outskirts of D.C.
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“If I had to pick, I would definitely put her more towards the inside, more towards the establishment,” said Drew Ryun, political director of the Madison Project, which has encouraged primary challenges to Republican lawmakers. “I think she’s definitely more from a corporate ideology and world view than the conservative grassroots has picked up on at this point.”
“She’s gotten away with great talking points,” Ryun said. “I think the more we find out about her, the more disenchanted with her the grassroots I think will become.”
.................................................. ...
View the complete article, including image, at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/ar...iders-can-love