The Myth of Fiorina’s ‘Moderate’ 2010 Campaign

[Valin]

National Review:

Jim Geraghty

September 22, 2015

 

It didn’t take long for the outlines of a Carly Fiorina backlash to emerge.

 

Talk-radio host Mark Levin is much less impressed than other conservatives by the former HP CEO’s breakout performance in last week’s GOP presidential debate. He charges that Fiorina embraced moderate, “establishment” positions in her only previous run for office, a 2010 bid for the Senate in California. “I remember in the 2010 GOP Senate primary race in California she staked out the moderate Republican position against State Representative Chuck DeVore,” Levin wrote. “She didn’t sound like a traditional, Reagan conservative back then.”

 

Levin’s skepticism is echoed by Townhall’s John Hawkins, who called Fiorina “the Establishment candidate” in that cycle, and by conservative policy analyst Dean Clancy, who showcased a post Red State’s Erick Erickson wrote during the Senate race declaring, “the mask is off, and there’s a squishy moderate underneath.”

 

With no previous elected office, Fiorina has no voting record to evaluate. It’s no surprise that fans of DeVore, a state assemblyman from Irvine with sterling credentials as a retired National Guardsman and Reagan-era Pentagon appointee, feel they were beaten out by a Joanie-come-lately who loaned her own campaign $1 million and outspent him nearly three-to-one.

 

But on several of conservatives’ biggest issues — gay marriage, abortion, and gun rights — Fiorina took bold, outspoken stances that put her to the right of previous leading California Republicans such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson. “I’m proudly pro-life,” Fiorina told the California Republican Assembly state convention. “Marriage is between a man and a woman. My husband owns lots of guns. I will defend the rights of the unborn and I will never turn my back on the values we hold so dear.”

 

The Charlie Crists, Arlen Specters, and Jon Huntsmans of the world don’t speak like that. Nor would they ever earn an enthusiastic endorsement from Sarah Palin, as Fiorina did in 2010. It’s worth noting that some tea-party groups erupted in fury when Palin endorsed Fiorina. But it’s also true that Palin wasn’t the only high-profile conservative to endorse the former HP CEO in the primary. Senators Tom Coburn and James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Jon Kyl of Arizona declared, “We are proud to endorse her as a fellow conservative who has real-world business experience and the guts and moxie to take on Barbara Boxer and win.”

 

(Snip)

[Draggingtree]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAkGD-otks4

[Geee]

Trump attacks someone every day - about the only person he hasn't attacked is Kanye West

[Valin]

Trump attacks someone every day - about the only person he hasn't attacked is Kanye West

 

Tomorrow

[Valin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAkGD-otks4

 

 

Mediaite Defends Donalds Honor.

[righteousmomma]

2010i - running in a very liberal state against a very liberal incumbent millionaire (whom I personally detest - not that it matters). Have seen this same "moderate", "maybe liberal" record on fb. All one has to do is read Carly's own campaign

http://carlyforca.com/

Go to "Carly on the Issues" and "additional issues" will even bring up her 20 year old thesis.

Download her thesis on education written more than 20 years ago as a student at MIT.

 

Just remember 20 years ago was a whole different world.

[Geee]

Is Carly Fiorina Ready for Her Close-up?

 

Spartanburg, S.C. — The staff supporting Carly Fiorina is drinking from a fire hose.

Fiorina was the undisputed winner of last week’s presidential debate. Once an asterisk in the polls, she is suddenly a hot commodity. A town hall scheduled in Rock Hill Wednesday night had already been moved once to accommodate hundreds more people than originally expected. And after a similar event in Myrtle Beach drew over 1,200 people on Tuesday, some were speculating that the venue might need to be changed again.

 

This is the new normal for Fiorina, who has jumped into third place in national polls since her triumphant debate performance. For the first few months of the campaign, Fiorina’s task was to introduce herself to voters who had no idea who she was. The debate raised her name-ID and convinced people she was a viable contender for the nomination. Now, she must make the case that she is not just a flash in the pan or a novelty candidate — that she has the staying power to go all the way.

 

In part, that will mean proving that she can handle the pressure — logistical and political — of being a top-tier candidate.

 

The logistics are difficult. The staff that does most of the support work for the events — handing out stickers and signs and collecting the contact information of those voters who attend — isn’t allowed to talk to the people deciding whether to change the venue. Fiorina’s super PAC, CARLY for America (few of the group’s staffers can tell you what the FEC-mandated acronym stands for) is serving as the ground crew that prepares venues for her appearances. But it’s the official campaign that is organizing those appearances, and federal election law bars the two groups from communicating. The division of powers owes in part to money: the super PAC raised $3.4 million in Fiorina’s first quarter as a candidate. Though that’s a small sum for a super PAC, it’s significantly more than the Fiorina campaign’s anemic $1.4 million.

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/424622/carly-fiorina-presidential-campaign-new-success

[Valin]

Is Carly Fiorina Ready for Her Close-up?

 

Spartanburg, S.C. — The staff supporting Carly Fiorina is drinking from a fire hose.

Fiorina was the undisputed winner of last week’s presidential debate. Once an asterisk in the polls, she is suddenly a hot commodity. A town hall scheduled in Rock Hill Wednesday night had already been moved once to accommodate hundreds more people than originally expected. And after a similar event in Myrtle Beach drew over 1,200 people on Tuesday, some were speculating that the venue might need to be changed again.

 

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/424622/carly-fiorina-presidential-campaign-new-success

 

 

Fiorina Changes Her Position on the Individual Mandate

Ramesh Ponnuru

September 25, 2015

 

CNN reported yesterday that Carly Fiorina had endorsed an individual mandate in 2013 while opposing Obamacare in general. (I wrote about it in the Corner.) Last night she put out a new statement announcing a change of position: “In 2013, I was in an argument on TV in which I once again said, ‘I think Obamacare remains an abomination.’ As part of that argument, I also said that I would agree with the conservative Heritage Foundation’s catastrophic coverage mandate as part of a plan that would ensure those with preexisting conditions could be covered. Since then, conservative health care experts have come up with significantly better alternatives to ObamaCare, including Representative Price’s and Governor Walker’s, just to name a couple. To be clear, I believe that we must find a way to cover people with pre-existing conditions–but I do not believe we need a mandate of any kind to do that.”

 

Here’s an article I wrote in 2011 arguing against an individual mandate, and here’s a post about conservatives’ history on the subject.

[Valin]

 

Carly Fiorina’s bogus ‘secretary to CEO’ career trajectory (Fact Checker biography)

 

 

Translation: She Wasn't Born In A Log Cabin

 

My award for Michelle Ye Hee Lee

[Valin]

 

Is Carly Fiorina Ready for Her Close-up?

 

Spartanburg, S.C. — The staff supporting Carly Fiorina is drinking from a fire hose.

Fiorina was the undisputed winner of last week’s presidential debate. Once an asterisk in the polls, she is suddenly a hot commodity. A town hall scheduled in Rock Hill Wednesday night had already been moved once to accommodate hundreds more people than originally expected. And after a similar event in Myrtle Beach drew over 1,200 people on Tuesday, some were speculating that the venue might need to be changed again.

 

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/424622/carly-fiorina-presidential-campaign-new-success

 

 

Fiorina Changes Her Position on the Individual Mandate

Ramesh Ponnuru

September 25, 2015

 

CNN reported yesterday that Carly Fiorina had endorsed an individual mandate in 2013 while opposing Obamacare in general. (I wrote about it in the Corner.) Last night she put out a new statement announcing a change of position: “In 2013, I was in an argument on TV in which I once again said, ‘I think Obamacare remains an abomination.’ As part of that argument, I also said that I would agree with the conservative Heritage Foundation’s catastrophic coverage mandate as part of a plan that would ensure those with preexisting conditions could be covered. Since then, conservative health care experts have come up with significantly better alternatives to ObamaCare, including Representative Price’s and Governor Walker’s, just to name a couple. To be clear, I believe that we must find a way to cover people with pre-existing conditions–but I do not believe we need a mandate of any kind to do that.”

 

Here’s an article I wrote in 2011 arguing against an individual mandate, and here’s a post about conservatives’ history on the subject.

 

 

 

Fiorina supported a type of individual mandate; is this the beginning of her end

Paul Mirengoff

September 25, 2015

 

Now that Carly Fiorina has emerged as a top-six candidate (at worst) for the GOP nomination, she will receive serious scrutiny. The little scrutiny she has received to date focuses on her record as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

 

That record is relevant to her candidacy. For me, however, her past positions on the major issues are more important. Has she been a consistent, hard-line conservative?

 

The early returns aren’t good for Fiornia. In a 2013 interview, she expressed support for an individual mandate which would require folks to purchase high-deductible “catastrophic care” insurance plans and use federal dollars to subsidize state-based high-risk pools to provide care for those who otherwise cannot afford it.

 

It’s important to note that such a requirement is very different from Obamacare’s individual mandate, which requires folks the purchase of plans that cover just about everything. Healthy young people, who only really need insurance against major unexpected health events, must pay high premiums for broad coverage. People who can’t have children must purchase plans that cover child birth.

 

Obamacare actually undermines the purchase of the kind of plan to which, I think, Fiorina wanted the mandate to apply. Such plans aren’t Obamacare compliant and have become very difficult to find.

 

It is also true that Fiorina’s position is similar to that advanced some years back by the Heritage Foundation. I believe, however, that Heritage had moved away from that position by 2013.

 

In any event, the individual mandate is widely despised by conservatives. So is this the beginning of the end for Fiorina?

 

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Fiorina's HP Earned Millions From Sales in Iran

Josh Rogin

Sept 14, 2015

 

On the campaign trail this year, Carly Fiorina has been a staunch advocate of keeping crippling sanctions on Iran, but under her leadership, Hewlett-Packard sold hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of products to Iran through a foreign subsidiary, despite strict U.S. export sanctions.

 

Fiorina, who served as chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005, often criticizes President Obama’s deal with Iran on the basis that he is agreeing to sanctions relief for Iran too quickly and in exchange for paltry concessions on the part of Tehran. In April, she said Iran sanctions were “unraveling fast,” something she called a “dangerous development.”

 

(Snip)

 

What Fiorina never mentions on the stump is that while she was in charge, Hewlett-Packard used a European subsidiary and a Middle East distributor to sell hundreds of millions of dollars of printers and other computer equipment to Iran.

 

HP’s unusual omnipresence inside Iran was first reported in 2008 by the Boston Globe, which discovered that in 1997 the company struck up a partnership with a new Indian company in Dubai called Redington Gulf. The partnership was so successful distributing in Iran that HP printers were No. 1 there, with 41 percent of the market share by 2007.

 

All U.S. companies were banned from exporting to Iran in 1995, when President Bill Clinton issued two executive orders tightening sanctions on Iran in response to Iran’s support for international terrorism and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. If HP executives knew about what the Dubai-based distributor was doing, they would have been breaking U.S. law.

 

(Snip)

 

 

H/T Hot Air

[Geee]

Fiorina's HP Earned Millions From Sales in Iran

Josh Rogin

Sept 14, 2015

 

On the campaign trail this year, Carly Fiorina has been a staunch advocate of keeping crippling sanctions on Iran, but under her leadership, Hewlett-Packard sold hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of products to Iran through a foreign subsidiary, despite strict U.S. export sanctions.

 

Fiorina, who served as chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005, often criticizes President Obama’s deal with Iran on the basis that he is agreeing to sanctions relief for Iran too quickly and in exchange for paltry concessions on the part of Tehran. In April, she said Iran sanctions were “unraveling fast,” something she called a “dangerous development.”

 

(Snip)

 

What Fiorina never mentions on the stump is that while she was in charge, Hewlett-Packard used a European subsidiary and a Middle East distributor to sell hundreds of millions of dollars of printers and other computer equipment to Iran.

 

HP’s unusual omnipresence inside Iran was first reported in 2008 by the Boston Globe, which discovered that in 1997 the company struck up a partnership with a new Indian company in Dubai called Redington Gulf. The partnership was so successful distributing in Iran that HP printers were No. 1 there, with 41 percent of the market share by 2007.

 

All U.S. companies were banned from exporting to Iran in 1995, when President Bill Clinton issued two executive orders tightening sanctions on Iran in response to Iran’s support for international terrorism and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. If HP executives knew about what the Dubai-based distributor was doing, they would have been breaking U.S. law.

 

(Snip)

 

 

H/T Hot Air

I saw an interview where she was asked about this - I think it was Chris Wallace.

[Valin]

@Geee

 

I saw it to. I don't recall the Iran deal being brought up.

 

While it is not a deal breaker by any means, I do find this...disturbing. I did not know about HP and Iran.

[Geee]

@Geee

 

I saw it to. I don't recall the Iran deal being brought up.

 

While it is not a deal breaker by any means, I do find this...disturbing. I did not know about HP and Iran.

If I remember right, there was an investigation and they came to the conclusion that HP management did not know anything about it. She said that HP is a large company with many subsidiaries and that it was one of those subsidiaries that made the deal.

[Valin]

Not the last time we'll see this. Particularly if she wins the nomination.