Why Carly Fiorina’s Bold Pro-Life Challenge Is the Essence of Leadership
Marjorie Dannanfelser – Fox News
The United States is one of just 7 countries in the world that allows abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, approximately halfway through a pregnancy. That’s roughly the same age as the baby described in the video Ms. Fiorina referenced, an age at which unborn babies are known to feel pain, and many can survive outside the womb….
In the weeks since the debate, opponents have tried to discredit Fiorina and the Center for Medical Progress, the nonprofit that made the videos to which she referred. PP’s president Cecile Richard’s claim that Fiorina’s attack is an “extraordinary lie” is based solely on the fact that the statement by O’Donnell that Fiorina refers to was briefly illustrated by video of a fetus at a similar gestational age, rather than the actual baby whose brain she harvested….
In a campaign dominated so far by outsized personalities, Carly Fiorina reminds us that the purpose of politics is not to gain power for its own sake, but rather to advance a set of ideas, staked in principle, that reflect the aspirations of the American people.
Carly Fiorina, former chairwoman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co. and an economic adviser to presidential candidate John McCain, speaks at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. on Sept. 3, 2008. (AP/File)
California Doesn’t Want Carly Fiorina
Joe Matthews – The Boston Globe
You can blame us Californians for superhero movies, addictive smartphone apps, and the Korean barbecue taco.
But don’t you dare blame us for Carly Fiorina….
So why is Fiorina so often identified as a Californian? Because the two most high-profile events of her life — her six years running Hewlett-Packard, and her 2010 campaign for US Senate — took place in our state. In our defense, California rejected her in both cases. But we’re still associated with Fiorina because of the size of her failures.
HP fired Fiorina, but only after she had taken a quintessential California company — started in a garage, with a nimble, open culture — and turned it into a bigger, nastier, and conventionally corporate place.
Does Fiorina’s HP Tenure Really Matter?
Megan McArdle – Bloomberg View
You can tell how well Carly Fiorina is doing by the sudden interest in attacking her.
Conservative and liberal columnists are engaged in a raging battle over whether Fiorina, a Republican presidential candidate, slightly misdescribed the contents of a video about Planned Parenthood’s late-term abortions, or brazenly made up horrid scenes to score points during the last debate. And, of course, there is a brisk columnist business in debating her tenure at Hewlett-Packard: Was she a blithe failure or a beleaguered CEO doing the best she could with what she had? ….
Failure doesn’t always mean you made the wrong decision. It may just mean there were no good options, or that you got unlucky…. But there’s another point to be made, too, which is that I’m simply not sure how much this matters. Fiorina could be the best CEO in the world, or the worst, and that wouldn’t give us much insight into how she’d do as president….
The problem, in other words, is not the people or the “culture” they live in; it is the system. And at least politicians know how to get results out of that system, however puny those results may seem next to our grand dreams of wholesale change.
Republican nominee candidates debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum on Sept. 16, 2015 in Simi Valley, Calif. (AP)