BackFiorina puts rivals in the shade to gain traction in GOP debate
Former HP CEO could help solve Republican Party's long-standing problem of how to entice female voters
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After a debate performance that was steely, self-assured and at times deeply personal, Carly Fiorina’s biggest effect on the contest for the Republican presidential nomination may be to help correct a problem that her party has struggled with in recent elections: how to appeal more effectively to women.
She spoke with startling candour at Wednesday’s debate about the death of her stepdaughter to drug addiction and the need for better treatment, revealing a painful episode that many people watching were unaware of: “My husband, Frank, and I buried a child to drug addiction."
She dismissed a question about putting a woman on the $10 bill in a way that none of the 10 men standing onstage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, with her could. “I think, hones-tly, it’s a gesture," she said. “We ought to recognize that women are not a special interest group."
And Fiorina said she spoke for disgusted women everywhere when she was asked about Donald Trump’s denial that he had mocked her looks by saying in a magazine interview, “Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?" She responded to a question at the debate about it: “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said."
The next few days offer Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, more opportunities to stand out in places where Trump, who leads in most polls, will again not be the sole focus.
Fiorina and most of the other Republican candidates—including Trump; Ben Carson, the retired pediatric neurosurgeon who has been cutting into Trump’s lead; Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor whose standing has declined and who had an unremarkable debate performance; and governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who appeared to be a formidable contender but has also faded—will make their way across the country from California to South Carolina and then Michigan for two Republican events.
As Fiorina conducted a series of interviews on Thursday, she acknowledged that one of her biggest challenges was getting past the fact that there are still so many people who do not know who she is.
“I went into this debate understanding that half the people watching had never heard my name and didn’t know I was running for president," she said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
She also spoke to CNN about the shadow that Trump’s remarks about her looks had cast over the campaign. She said she still saw a double standard.
“It’s still different for a woman," she said. “It’s only a woman whose appearance would be talked about while running for president—never a man, and I think that’s what women understand."
With the Republican race so centered on Trump’s antics, Fiorina’s detailed answers on questions of foreign and domestic policy may help steer the tenor of the campaign away from personality and celebrity and back towards substance.
But those looming policy debates are not all friendly territory for the Republicans. And while Fiorina won praise from many conservatives for an impa-ssioned denunciation of Planned Parenthood during the debate, Republicans risk damaging their standing by linking the fight over funding women’s healthcare to a government shutdown.
Congress has only until 30 September to decide on how to finance the government. Many Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail are pushing for Planned Parenthood to be stripped of its $500 million in federal funding. ©2015/The New York Times
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