WELCOME CARLY – AT 8:56 A.M. ET: Carly Fiorina has just formally declared her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. From The New York Times:
Carly Fiorina became the second woman and the first former chief executive to enter the 2016 presidential campaign when she announced on Monday that her private-sector background and conservative credentials make her best positioned to capture the Republican nomination and take on Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“I think I’m the best person for the job because I understand how the economy actually works,” Ms. Fiorina told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News on Monday. “I understand executive decision making which is making a tough call in a tough time with high stakes.”
Ms. Fiorina’s long-shot campaign — polls show only a sliver of Republicans would support her at this stage — has nevertheless attracted the attention of conservatives in early nominating states, largely because of her increasingly pointed attacks on Mrs. Clinton and her impassioned anti-abortion position. (“Liberals believe that flies are worth protecting but that the life of an unborn child is not,” she said in January.)
Ms. Fiorina said in a conference call with reporters that her experience working her way up from secretary to the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard made her stand out in a packed Republican field consisting mostly of senators and governors.
“Our nation was intended to be a citizen government, and somehow we’ve come to this place in our nation’s history where we think we need a professional political class,” the former chief executive said of her corporate background. She added that it is a “pivotal point for our nation” and therefore “totally reasonable to look outside the political class.”
COMMENT: I like her. She's strong, clear and articulate. She's been a wonderful candidate so far.
Would she make a good president? Who really knows? I think we may, down the line, be asking whether she'd make a strong vice-presidential candidate. I could easily see a Rubio-Fiorina ticket, or Walker-Fiorina. In that sense she must be careful not to slam the "political class" too hard. She may need that class in only months.
May 4, 2015 |