(Desmoines Register) – So far, all the GOP presidential contenders who have tested the waters in Iowa have found the temperature toasty.
Republican Carly Fiorina is the latest long shot to get a hero’s welcome from conservative activists here.
Last Wednesday, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO attracted the second-biggest crowd that Urbandale’s Westside Conservative Club has seen in two presidential election cycles — this one and the previous one.
Nearly 300 came to the Clinton County GOP’s spring dinner Thursday night for Fiorina’s keynote speech. At the spaghetti dinner Friday night for the Johnson County GOP, more tables had to be brought out to handle a bigger-than-anticipated audience of 260.
About 110 Iowans showed up Saturday morning for a Webster County Republican Women event.
“Everyone I spoke to left inspired by what Ms. Fiorina had to say,” Karen Glaser, co-chair of the Webster County GOP, told The Des Moines Register. “I feel that she is picking up speed, and the more people that hear her, the better it will get.”
What’s clear is that Fiorina, a 60-year-old California native who has barely clocked 1 percent in recent polling, is now on Iowa activists’ radar. Where did this wellspring of admiration and affection come from?
“It’s not at all by accident,” Steve DeMaura, executive director of the super PAC supporting Fiorina, told the Register. “She has been spending a lot of time on the phone talking with people, doing lots of national press, spending lots of time in Iowa, doing one-on-one meetings.”
But some activists said it’s hard to say whether Iowa Republicans see something singular in Fiorina, or if it’s pent-up fever to retake the Oval Office — and any promising Republican will get their love.
“I think folks are clamoring for a change, and they want to hear all of the candidates, Carly being one of them,” said Jim Oberhelman, chairman of the Webster County GOP. “It’s indicative of the state of things in the White House right now.”
Some Republicans question positions
At the end of a five-day barnstorm last week, Fiorina said she traveled 1,222 miles and spoke to 2,400 Iowans in 15 towns. She repeatedly expressed gratitude for all the fanfare she’s getting.
“In less than a couple weeks now, I’m going to officially throw my hat into the ring,” Fiorina declared Thursday at an Ames Pizza Ranch during a breakfast meeting of the Story County Republicans. About 50 townspeople and Iowa State University students applauded; it was the best turnout that group has had in a while, organizers said.
Fiorina will officially declare a presidential bid on Monday via an online message, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. But instead of a traditional circle through Iowa and the early primary states, she’ll speak at a technology conference Tuesday, and promote her new book, “Rising to the Challenge — My Leadership Journey,” which happens to have a Tuesday release date. She’s back in Iowa May 7.
Democrats are already targeting Fiorina, predicting that the more Iowans know about her record at Hewlett-Packard of nearly 30,000 layoffs and millions in bonuses for herself, the more trouble she’ll run into.
“Let’s face it,” Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire said in a news release last week, “Ms. Fiorina’s record of corporate greed speaks not only for itself, but also for the failed policies and initiatives of the Republican-led Congress, many of whom are also running for president.”
Some agriculture-focused Republicans are leery of Fiorina’s seeming opposition to the Renewable Fuel Standard. “It’s not the government’s job to determine market access,” she told 75 people Wednesday in Marshalltown.
Her conservative credentials could be tarnished by the fact that she was a leading surrogate for John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.
And while she delves into social issues to voice strong opposition to abortion, she doesn’t bring up same-sex marriage unless asked. Fiorina told Iowans she personally believes in the church definition of marriage as one man, one woman, but backs marriage equality for gay couples because she believes the government can’t confer benefits on its citizens unequally. At Hewlett-Packard, benefits were extended to both same-sex and heterosexual couples.
Some like idea of two-woman matchup
GOP activists are waiting for clues that Fiorina intends to spend money and time to build an organization to see her through the ups and downs of a long caucus campaign, but there has been little sign of that yet.
“I think people find her interesting and somewhat unique,” said Karen Fesler, who was one of 65 people at a Fiorina event in Coralville and 130 in Tiffin. “I have heard comments from many people that both she and Gov. Bobby Jindal should be on short lists for VP or possible cabinet positions.”
Others think Fiorina could get traction as a presidential contender, partly because she prevents Democrats from owning “the year of the woman” narrative with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
“People I’ve talked to are intrigued by the possibility of a Hillary-Carly matchup,” said GOP activist Shane Vanderhart, founder of the conservative blog CaffeinatedThoughts.com. “She has had some of the strongest criticism of Clinton out of anyone I’ve seen in the field thus far.”
Fiorina is trying to appeal to three main segments of the Iowa GOP: local community business leaders; Republicans who were active in the political system in past years but grew disenfranchised; and conservatives who don’t want to just tinker around the edges of reform but rethink government, her backers said.
“They’re people with some imagination, willing to take a risk,” DeMaura said. “If you go with Jeb Bush or Scott Walker, no one’s going to question you. It’s very safe.”
Fiorina stresses that she hails from the technology world and has ideas for using technology to make government more efficient. She focuses on economic and foreign policy issues. She tells Iowans that crony capitalism, led by powerful industry lobbyists, has made the U.S. “a place where our government has grown so big, so powerful, so costly, so complex, so corrupt” that its weight is crushing the nation’s potential.
She says health insurance should be let loose into a free market for the first time in its history. She says it would not be difficult to secure the southern border and it should be done now. She talks about how “the political class” can’t get much of anything done, but a leader with vision can.
“Her proven success in business makes me confident in her ability to run the country,” Amanda Jean “A.J.” Krause, 29, of West Des Moines told the Register after seeing Fiorina at the Westside Conservative Club. “I’m happy the Republican Party has a strong, smart, and successful female contender, because women, women’s rights, and the female vote are important to the right.”
She was first hopeful to visit some counties
In the last cycle and this one, the only larger crowd for a Westside Conservative Club breakfast in the back room at the Iowa Machine Shed restaurant was in 2011 for Rick Perry, right after the then-Texas governor made his larger-than-life entrance into the presidential race late in the game, said Brad Boustead, one of the organizers.
The crowd for Fiorina last week “wasn’t just our regulars,” Boustead said of the standing-room-only audience of around 150. “She’s getting people out of the woodwork.”
Fiorina was the first GOP contender this cycle to visit Clinton County, despite the double entendre opportunity to taunt Hillary Clinton. Fiorina “had a wonderful reception,” said Diane Cassaday, secretary of the county GOP.
Fiorina also was first to make a foray into Crawford County, where she drew 60 people, said county GOP Chairwoman Gwen Ecklund. “Several mentioned they had seen her on TV and wanted to meet her,” Ecklund told the Register. “All reactions seemed positive.”
Fiorina took questions from Iowans at each stop, said West Des Moines-based GOP strategist Mary Earnhardt, who is state director for the Carly for America super PAC.
“The questions were succinct and pointed, not softballs, and she did not waffle, pander or evade them,” said Peter Rogers, chairman of the Marshall County GOP. “Probably most telling to me was that, after the event, I heard no comments to the effect that ‘nice event, but she could never win.’ So yes, I think she is catching on.”
Where to see Fiorina
- Fiorina will give the keynote lecture at the Dallas County GOP’s speaker series on Thursday, May 7. A reception begins at 5:30 p.m. followed by remarks at 6 p.m. at the West Des Moines Marriott Hotel on Jordan Creek Parkway. Tickets are $25 and may be purchased at the door or by emailing dcgopia@gmail.com.
- She will be one of 10 presidential contenders who speaks at the Republican Party of Iowa’s Lincoln Dinner on Saturday, May 16. Dinner will be served at 5:30 p.m. at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. Go to www.eventbrite.com/e/lincoln-dinner-tickets-16325824982 for tickets.
In her own words
Here are some of the things Republican presidential contender Carly Fiorina said to introduce herself to Iowans last week:
- “I bring to this race a totally different perspective. I’m not a political neophyte, but I’m also not a professional politician. … I actually understand how the economy works, and I understand how the world works, and I understand how bureaucracies work, and I understand how technology works.”
- “I started my career as a secretary. … It’s only in the United States of America that a young woman can start as a medieval studies and philosophy major, and a law school drop-out, and a receptionist in a nine-person real estate firm, and go on to become the chief executive of the largest technology company in the world and maybe yes, just maybe, run for president.”
- “People would challenge me, ‘How can you support extreme positions in the Republican party?’ What I’d always say is, ‘Have you read the Democratic position? … Any abortion at any time for any reason at any point in a woman’s pregnancy right up until the last minute to be paid for by taxpayers.’ … I might go further and say, ‘How do you feel about the fact that a 13-year-old girl needs their mother’s permission to go to a tanning salon, but not to get an abortion?’ Hillary Clinton lobbied against parental notification. Most mothers are horrified by that. Most people are horrified by that.”
- “Like all of you, I have gone through hard times. When I battled cancer six years ago, it was the strength of my family and the power of my faith that saw me through. And very soon after that long battle when we lost our younger daughter, Lori Ann, to the demons of addiction, it was my husband, Frank’s, and my personal relationship with Jesus Christ that saved us from a desperate sadness.”
- “Hillary, news flash: I have four accounts on my single device. … The funniest thing to me was when she said at her news conference that we didn’t need to worry about the confidentiality of her communications. She had two Secret Service agents guarding the server. You know, we’re not worried about it getting stolen. We’re worried about getting hacked!”
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/04/28/carly-fiorina-picking-speed-iowa-gop-activists-say/26543889/
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