What Is Next For Carly Fiorina?
When the 2016 race for the presidency began, nobody knew what to expect from the Republican party. With President Obama finishing out his second term, this presidential election is un-challenged by a presidential incumbent. Although the playing field seemed essentially open, the ‘Ready for Hillary’ campaign and Super PAC, which originated as early as 2013, almost guaranteed to the American public that Hillary Clinton would be the 2016 Democratic nominee for president. Whether or not this was necessarily true at the time, the confident tone that the campaign gave off seemed to scare off Democratic contenders for president. Bernie Sanders, a radical liberal and self-proclaimed socialist—the only real contender for Hillary in the polls—has such radical ideals that it seems strange for him to be such a serious contender for Clinton. The only logical explanation seems to be that his overwhelming support comes because he draws the ‘Anybody but Hillary’ crowd.
On the other side of the battleground, the Republican party seems to lack any part of the extreme focus that the Democrats had. Sitting and former politicians flooded in from all over the country, hoping to get their name on the 2016 ballot. Currently, there are an overwhelming 37 declared Republican presidential candidates, 17 of whom have gained real attention from the public and 15 of whom are still actively participating in debates. Many candidates have legitimate political experience, such as John Kasich, the youngest person ever elected to Ohio State Senate at age 26. Now an 18 year federal congressman, he once balanced a devastated budget as the Ohio Governor, somehow converting an extreme 6 billion dollar deficit to a 2 billion dollar surplus. On the stage with Kasich are also eight other governors and five senators—all with extensive political resumes.
With this massive pool of qualified politicians, three of the main seventeen who have never seen the inside of a political office seem wildly out of place. First is Donald Trump, a former “businessman” and a reality TV star. Trump is probably the best known of the three stand outs for overwhelmingly negative reasons, most notably for his rampant racism and for having the worst haircut on the face of the planet. Although at the moment Trump leads many national polls, it can be attributed to his name recognition alone. Allow me to point out that in a semi-recent poll in which voters were asked to choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, a whopping nine percent of the public chose internet sensation “Deez Nuts.” Like I said, name recognition.
Second of the three we have Ben Carson, an intelligent and self made Yale graduate and extremely successful pediatric neurosurgeon. Carson is lesser know for the scripted television drama movie about his life and career ‘Gifted Hands,’ which contains one of the worst montages in movie history. As described recently in another Exonian piece, “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story” by Henrietta Reily and Hannah Piette, “every exchange in the montage is jaggedly cut and pasted together with painfully cliché dialogue and filtered shots.”
Third and finally we have Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard CEO. She is the only female Republican presidential nominee. When Fiorina announced her candidacy, her campaign was perceived as insignificant. Nobody had heard of her; she didn’t appear to be much different from many of the other candidates in the GOP pool and although her gender and assumed stance on women’s rights intrigued many, because of her lack of experience and name recognition, it seemed like the fight was over before it began.
In the first Republican National Debate in August, Fiorina was not one of the top ten candidates in the polls and therefore did not even appear in the prime time debate. Her outstanding performance in the “Junior Varsity” debate, however, attracted tons of attention, with much of the media proclaiming her the winner of the JV debate and scolding Fox, the debate hosts, for keeping her out of the spotlight.
In the second Republican National Debate, one month later, CNN tailored much of the criteria for who is allowed to compete in the primetime debate to allow Fiorina onto the main stage, despite her relatively low polling numbers. The allowance proved extremely rewarding. Fiorina had the third most speaking time after Trump and Jeb Bush, and was declared the winner of the debate by almost every major media source in the country. Fiorina responded eloquently and articulately not only to direct questions from the moderators, but also from attacks from her fellow candidates, most notably Donald Trump, who, in a Rolling Stone article, most recently chose to attack Fiorina not politically, but based on appearance. Writer Paul Solotaroff quotes Trump upon seeing Fiorina on screen, “‘Look at that face!’ ‘Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!’ ‘I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?’”
Fiorina came out of a question based around this attack seeming not only like the more mature candidate, but as the candidate more fit for the job. Following the debate, Fiorina gained around a seven percent jump in the polls, with around 10 percent of the national republican vote, putting her solidly in third place. Although Fiorina gained recognition for her outstanding debate performances, we, as the public, have to wonder if she will be able to use this momentum to continue to gain steam with the American public. Almost a month after the second debate, we have yet to see anything notable about her in the press, and although this can be taken positively it still begs the question, what’s next for Carly Fiorina? ♥