Free Republic

In Carly Fiorina's telling, the only times she's been in Washington have been when she's fighting it. Standing in a jam-packed open-air smoke shed here outside Columbia on Wednesday, the surging Republican presidential candidate once again blasted the "professional political class" and the lawyers, lobbyists and special interests that cater to it. Her stump speech highlights her private sector career -- starting as a secretary and ending up as the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard -- that voters here rave makes her an appealing candidate in this season of outsiders. But what Fiorina rarely mentions are her ties to that same...

Here is the 218-page opposition research report on Carly Fiorina compiled by political research firm Gragert Jones for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in April 2010.

Carly Fiorina, who has joined other leading Republican presidential candidates in denouncing Obamacare, once backed an individual mandate to buy health insurance that could put her at odds with others in the GOP. During a panel discussion on CNN's "Crossfire" in 2013 about the law with former CNN host Stephanie Cutter, Fiorina said she supports keeping the requirement that every American purchase health insurance.

The news that Jeb Bush’s official presidential campaign account is running out of money may have been taken as bad news by some in the Republican Party. -snip- Thus, “Right to Rise” really isn’t Jeb Bush’s Super PAC. It is rather an independent expenditure committee of operatives and donors that Trump sarcastically refers to as the “puppeteers” who favor Bush right now. And since it is indeed legally independent of Jeb Bush, it is not legally committed to support him. An amount like $103 million is not a sum to be invested unwisely. The “Right to Rise” PAC could decide...

In an interview with Matt Cooper, former Hewlett Packard CEO/RNC Victory Chair/top McCain economic surrogate Carly Fiorina offers some straight talk about Hillary: When I ask her what she thinks of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign—and whether the Democratic New York senator faced sexism on the campaign trail—her response is clear. "Yes. I think women in positions of power are treated differently, and the treatment of her demonstrates that," she replies.

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina may or may not be on Arizona Sen. John McCain's short list for vice president, but she already is taking a crucial role in the Republican presidential hopeful's campaign. In March, Fiorina was picked by the Republican National Committee to chair a group directed to raise money and get out the vote for this year's elections. Shortly after that move was announced, Fiorina was interviewed by Business Week about her role. "My role is to be the primary advocate for John McCain and for the Republican Party," she said. "Certainly there are a lot of...

For the second time this week the McCain campaign tried to disentangle itself from embarrassing comments made by surrogates stumping for the Republican presidential candidate. -snip- Today the campaign tried to recover from a comment by Carly Fiorina, McCain's most visible woman surrogate and a possible vice presidential pick. Fiorina, the former chief of Hewlett-Packard, left McCain speechless this week when she seemed to criticize health insurance companies for covering Viagra for men but not covering birth control for women -- a point made frequently by abortion rights groups. "A real, live example, which I've been hearing a lot about...

Top McCain-Palin official Carly Fiorina is facing criticism from some within the campaign for a day of what they call "very Biden-like" comments, after the former Hewlett-Packard CEO told two separate interviewers that neither member of the Republican ticket would be capable of running a company. Democratic VP nominee Joe Biden is noted for his off-the-cuff gaffes. Asked by a St. Louis radio station whether she thought Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin could run a company like Hewlett-Packard, Fiorina responded: "No, I don't. “But that's not what she's running for. Running a corporation is a different set of things."...

Former Carly Fiorina political staffers refuse to work for her again after they weren't paid for YEARS (and she's worth $120 million!) Fiorina lost her first run for office, a 2010 bid for the US Senate in California. 'I'd rather go to Iraq than work for Carly Fiorina again,' said one high-level former campaign staffer. Fiorina super PAC spokesperson brushes if off, saying it's 'common' for political campaigns to have massive debts when they fold. Politics has a well-known revolving door, with candidates often rehiring consultants, strategists and vendors as they move from one campaign to the next. But for...

A new report calls into question Carly Fiorina's business practices while CEO of Hewlett-Packard. When Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina was at the helm of Hewlett-Packard, she oversaw HP's lobbying of the U.S. government for a temporary tax holiday on corporate profits so it could use the money to create new jobs. Much of that money, however, was used to buy back HP stock while then-CEO Fiorina fired 14,500 employees, according to a new report from The Daily Beast. HP was at the forefront of the lobbying effort for the Homeland Investment Act of 2004, a law designed to generate...

Hold on to your toupees, the conservative intellectuals are in a stew. Trump’s rambunctious presence in the race is responsible for a miracle. The conservative intellectuals have finally thrown in with the left intellectuals. Both disrelish Trump, and, if truth be known, they are not very happy with Carson or Fiorina, who with Trump account for over 50 percent of the Republican vote. A year ago these three would be sitting in the politicians’ audience. How is it that Trump anticipates the issues better than the establishment politicians? Well, despite his fortune, Trump is a regular American. I think a...

“Operation Hummingbird” is dependent upon the general Republican electorate/audience and media consumer being swayed by optics and manipulation as a strategy. In essence full-throated “gaslighting“. Cutting through that intent and getting to the substance of truth is really not too difficult, but you won’t find many outlets (new media or old) willing to go there. However, as you are aware for us the Truth Has No Agenda, and Sunlight Is The Best Disinfectant. We begin by watching this video of Carly Fiorina appearing on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and the discussion of a Muslim candidate eligible as U.S....

Ex-staffers have harsh words for Republican presidential candidate. Carly Fiorina apparently left a trail of unpaid, unhappy campaign staffers after her unsuccessful 2010 U.S. Senate bid. According to Reuters, the former HP CEO and 2016 Republican presidential hopeful waited more than four years to give her campaign staff the compensation they were promised. “Federal campaign filings show that, until a few months before Fiorina announced her presidential bid on May 4, she still owed staffers, consultants, strategists, legal experts and vendors nearly half a million dollars,” Reuters reported. Twelve ex-Fiorina campaign workers told Reuters that, if given the chance to...

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is running for president. This will be her second bid for office — in 2010, she tried and failed to win a Senate seat in California. And in the process, she released one of the most blissfully bad campaign ads in recent memory. Watch it if you haven't. Watch it again if you have. It's that good. And bad. The gist of the video is that Fiorina's primary opponent Tom Campbell (whom she eventually crushed by nearly 35 percentage points) is a "fiscal conservative in name only" — a wolf in sheep's clothing, if you...

The Washington Examiner has taken the, “Beep beep, move along folks, nothing to see here” approach to try to bring down Donald Trump. These latest Wile E. Coyotes have pronounced, “Trump is obsessed with an immigration crisis that’s already over.” The illegal aliens they are talking about are being supported to the tune of $200 billion a year by the few Americans who are still working but that is not a problem, the Washington Examiner assures us. The fact that Barack Obama has done so well in “fundamentally transforming America” into a third country has made life so intolerable here...

Carly Fiorina Says She Feels 'Empathy' for Hillary Clinton – and Vows She'll 'Never Make a Personal Comment' About Her. Carly Fiorina has said that women "are not a special interest group," but that doesn't mean she doesn't feel a certain kinship with her fellow females – even her Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. "I feel empathy with every woman who is working really hard and giving it all they've got – and Hillary is," the GOP presidential hopeful tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. "She's smart, she's hardworking, she's giving it all she's got." Clinton, 67, and Fiorina, 61, first...

You won’t see it being reported openly in the Mainstream Media. Nor will you hear mention of it by any of the establishment Republican candidates, but within that vortex of supposed silence there has been a coordinated shift within the most influential Republican donor class in favor of the campaign of Marco Rubio. This shift in allegiance by Republican power brokers was first reported upon here nearly two months ago in a report titled, Big Donors Warn Candidates On Eve Of Debate: “Take Trump Out” Of all the main stage candidates from the first debate who participated in the second...

Scott Walker’s exit from the White House race is disrupting the GOP contest, and many observers believe Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will be the biggest beneficiary. Rubio and Walker were seen at the outset of the race as the candidates with the best shot at winning over the GOP’s conservative grassroots and then running strong in the general election. But with the Wisconsin governor now out of the mix, suddenly a new group of supporters — and big-money donors — are up for grabs. Rubio had already been showing signs of new strength in the wake of the second GOP...

“Operation Hummingbird” an identifier given (by me) to describe a very strategic approach of Karl Rove in getting Jeb Bush the republican nomination. “Hummingbird” describes a very a specific strategy to overcome a hurdle currently blocking Rove’s path, Donald Trump. Often it is easier to use a descriptive term, rather than spend 300 words having to re-explain a strategy as it expands and becomes increasingly visible over time.

An Iowa poll released Tuesday by Public Policy polling has Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton remaining in the lead in their respective parties and Jeb Bush as the Republican candidate viewed most unfavorable by Republican voters. This poll shows a sharp decline for Bush in the Hawkeye state, just a month ago in August PPP had him polling at 11 percent, now he is at 6, his real issue though is with favorablity.