Mitch Perry
Call her the anti-Hillary.
Carly Fiorina is the only woman considered a possible candidate for the Republican nomination for president in the current field. She presented a refined performance Saturday before hundreds of New Hampshire Republicans in the First in the Nation Republican Leadership Summit in Nashua.
“Hilary Clinton must not become president of the United States,” Fiorina said in her speech, hardly a novel concept among speakers at this forum.
“I was asked this morning on Fox News about whether a woman’s hormones prevented her from serving in the Oval Office,” she said, pausing as members of the audience looked puzzled.
“Not that we haven’t seen a man’s judgments affected by hormones, including in the Oval Office,” she said. Ba-dump-bump.
She said Hillary Clinton must not be president because “she does not have a track record of accomplishment,” and later used her signature crack against the former first lady. “I’ve flown hundreds of thousands of miles. Flying is an activity, not an accomplishment.”
Like the other Republican speakers this weekend in New Hampshire, Fiorina talked about a country in despair. She said she has traveled and spoken to people across the country and senses a “deep disquiet.” People fear they’re losing the sense of limitless possibility “that has always defined this country,” she said, calling it a”flat, hopeless look.”
Fiorina touts that she’s a nonpolitician, boasting about her business skills, though her leadership at Hewlett Packard has been questioned. Plus, if it were up to her, she would already be a politician: She lost to Barbara Boxer in a 2010 race for U.S. Senate.
She decried the growth of government, saying it has become bigger annually for the past 50 years, and said American leadership is sorely lacking.
The forum in Nashua seemed dominated by concerns about national security, where Fiorina’s résumé is bare. As if to compensate, she said she’s met with Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu and Chinese leaders, and chaired a CIA advisory board.
She pivoted to Iran by talking about how her business experience has taught her how to negotiate, and that she wouldn’t do it the way Barack Obama has. She said she would walk away from talking to the Iranian government until they agreed to full, unfettered inspections to every single nuclear facility.
As she left the stage to a standing ovation, the strains of Alicia Keys‘ “This Girl is on Fire” ushered her from view.
