Byron York:
There’s been a lot of buzz over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s well-received performance at the Freedom Summit of 2016 Republican presidential candidates in Des Moines over the weekend. Sen. Ted Cruz also scored big. And New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie won praise not only for showing up — some didn’t expect he would attend such a conservative gathering — but for delivering a heartfelt talk that connected with much of the audience.
Each man improved his position in the GOP field, but the potential candidate with the most improved standing in Iowa — if only because she started from virtually nowhere — would have to be Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard CEO and failed California Senate candidate who’s now considering the longest-of-longshot runs for the White House.
Even though Fiorina, on behalf of her political action committee, Unlocking Potential PAC, visited Iowa to support winning Senate candidate Joni Ernst last year, it’s safe to say most people in the crowd Saturday had never heard her say a word. What they got was a perspective that stood apart, a candidate who used her business career to approach popular topics in new and appealing ways.
For example, can one debunk the “war on women” and go after bloated government at the same time? Fiorina found a way when she described running into top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett at a recent TV appearance.
First, Fiorina asked Jarrett about the gender pay gap at the White House. Then: “I asked her further why, if she was so concerned about equal pay for equal work, why the White House was not tackling the seniority system, which is in place in every federal government bureaucracy and every union shop.” Relying on an sclerotic seniority system not only discourages innovation in government, Fiorina argued, it also disadvantages women who find themselves stuck behind less competent but more senior male colleagues.
Fiorina used her career perspective again to attack liberals who burden business with regulations that purport to ensure a fairer marketplace but end up giving big firms an advantage over smaller ones.
“Liberals call us the party of big business,” Fiorina said. “But then they continue to increase the burden and the complexity of taxes and regulations until only the big and the powerful and the wealthy and the well-connected can survive. I ran a big business. I didn’t like the regs, but I could handle them. I could hire accountants and lawyers.” Small firms, she told the crowd, can’t handle the strain and end up going out of business.
Conservatives in the audience warmed to the message. “I had never heard Fiorina before,” said Sam Clovis, a veteran activist. “She gave the perfect speech in the perfect venue on the perfect topic. I had low expectations so her performance made an impression on me.”
An unspoken theme underlying Fiorina’s speech was the prospect of a Republican woman facing a Democratic woman, Hillary Clinton, in the general election. Certainly Fiorina didn’t hold back. She ridiculed Clinton’s proud claim to have traveled more miles than any Secretary of State — “Mrs. Clinton, flying is not an accomplishment, it is an activity.”
Fiorina went on to hit Clinton on Russia, China, Iran, and Benghazi. “Unlike Hillary Clinton, I know what difference it makes that our American ambassador and three other brave Americans were killed in a deliberate terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9/11 in Libya,” Fiorina said. “And apparently unlike Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I know our response must be more forceful than the arrest of a single individual one year later.”
