Free Republic

An enthusiastic crowd of 625 arrived in Davenport, Iowa, Friday morning to see Carly Fiorina. But her campaign has no record of them. Instead, volunteers and staff with the super PAC Carly for America handed out stickers and signed up the attendees to receive more information. This is how Fiorina, who has rocketed to the top tier in national polls since last week's CNN debate, is organizing in Iowa. "I would say most of the organizing work is done on Carly for America," campaign state director Christopher Rants told CNN on Wednesday. On the campaign side, he said, "Our focus...

HER silver tongue honed by decades in corporate marketing, Carly Fiorina has used two debates, and a steely determination on the campaign trail, to climb near the top of the polls for the Republican nomination. But Americans should pause on her biggest professional credential for our highest office: a short, disastrous stint atop one of America’s iconic technology companies, Hewlett-Packard. The clearest measure of her performance — and the report card preferred by Wall Street — is H.P.’s stock price, which dropped by 52 percent during her tenure of almost six years. Yes, Mrs. Fiorina served during the worst fall...

In late 2010, polls showed Carly Fiorina within a point or two of beating California’s Democratic incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer. The Republican candidate was impressing on the trail and gaining traction with voters, much like she is now as a Republican presidential contender. And then the attack ads began. “Thirty thousand Californians lost their jobs,” the narrator of an ad released in mid-September said of Fiorina’s legacy as CEO of the Silicon Valley tech giant Hewlett Packard. “Fiorina tripled her salary, bought a million dollar yacht, and five corporate jets.” Her poll numbers dipped — and they never quite recovered....

While everyone is busy chasing “shiny things”, and Karl Rove keeps feeding the media for “Operation Hummingbird” the GOPe apparatus is working behind the scenes to usurp the conservative electorate and assist, now modify, their GOPe road map to nominate Jeb Bush. Forget Rubio and Fiorina, they are the Hummingbirds. They are only in place to remove the threat that is Trump. Once Trump is dispatched, Rubio and Fiorina go back to loyal team members of Jeb Bush. This is Karl Rove at work. The RNC/GOPe have one goal. The RNC/GOPe have only one goal. Their goal is to deliver...

Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R) pledged in South Carolina Thursday evening that he will earn victory in the South’s first presidential primary next year. “I’m going to win South Carolina, take it to the bank,” Bush told reporters, according to The Charleston Post and Courier. His boast came before a speech addressing the East Cooper Republican Women’s group in Mount Pleasant. Bush is making the Palmetto State a key focus of his 2016 Oval Office bid as he struggles for traction in the first voting states. He ranks sixth out of 15 candidates in Iowa with 5.3 percent and fifth...

Some people were not happy after presidential candidate Jeb Bush told a group in South Carolina Thursday night that Republicans can win more African-American voters with a message of positivity than with one that promises “free stuff.” The remarks, reported first by the Washington Post, echoed those by Mitt Romney in 2012 that sparked criticism at the time. Bush’s campaign event Thursday drew a largely white audience, according to the New York Times, and his comments came in response to a question about how he would appeal to African-American voters. The phrase “free stuff” was trending on Twitter Friday morning...

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush made a weird comment during a town hall meeting in South Carolina on Thursday night. Responding to a question about how the Republican Party could win black votes, Bush said that "[o]ur messages is one of hope and aspiration. It isn't one of division and get in line and we'll take care of you with free stuff." The comment was odd in part because it echoed remarks made by Mitt Romney in 2012 that prompted a strong backlash from voters. It's similar to Romney's famous "47 percent" remarks, but also, as our Sean Sullivan notes,...

First, the requisite compliment: Gov. Scott Walker is a wonderful guy and a true leader. What he has done in standing up to the unions is remarkable and will be remembered in history. I had high hopes he could marry his fearless leadership with conservative positions that I assumed he held - on marriage, on life, on spending - but … well, his campaign for president became something else entirely. Mr. Walker failed because in every Republican cycle, the establishment needs some guys to run and to fail. The Establishment needs the money and employment, and they need candidates to...

When Fiorina lost her Senate bid in 2010, she had lots of bills left to pay. So she did what any multimillionaire who loaned her campaign cash would do: She paid herself first. After Carly Fiorina’s unsuccessful 2010 run for Senate in California, it took her more than four years to fully pay staff and vendors for their work on her campaign to unseat Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. But a review of Federal Election Commission records by The Daily Beast shows that Fiorina first paid herself back for more than $1.25 million in personal loans she made to the campaign,...

Editor’s Note: Every candidate running for president likes to highlight certain aspects of his or her biography. This is an occasional series taking a deeper look at 2016 candidates’ claims about their personal, professional or political record. We welcome suggestions for future fact checks, which we ultimately will compile as a collection. See our complete Scott Walker biography collection here. *** “I started as a secretary, typing and filing for a nine-person real estate firm. It’s only in this country that you can go from being a secretary to chief executive of the largest tech company in the world, and...

As if there was any remaining doubt about the RNC/GOPe road map. Well here ya go. Jeb Bush just hired Ray Sullivan who was previously working with Austin and Henry Barbour on Rick Perry’s campaign efforts. The Barbours’ were the bag-men for Mitch McConnell and the NRSC hit team along with Brad Dayspring when they went after Chris McDaniel in Mississippi primary ’14 (racist attack ads, and paying Dems to vote in primary). In essence Jeb is aligning/confirming his scorched earth election intents....

Carly Fiorina has taken a hard line against Planned Parenthood as a Republican presidential candidate, but in 2005 she invested in a health care website similar to WebMD that touted abortion benefits and directed users to Planned Parenthood. The Revolution Health Group website assured users abortion is safe and directed them to pro-choice groups including Planned Parenthood for more information, but did not link to any pro-life groups or offer a pro-choice perspective. Fiorina joined RHG as an investor and board member when it was founded in 2005. Her campaign did not respond to requests for comment regarding her knowledge...

Good360, which provides charities with goods from businesses, donated $18,022 in goods to an affiliate of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which calls abortion “a fundamental human right.” In 2013, a charity whose board is chaired by Carly Fiorina donated $18,022 of goods to an organization that provides financial assistance to women seeking abortions. Fiorina, the Republican presidential candidate, has served as the chair of Good360 since 2012. The organization facilitates donations from companies to nonprofits by allowing the companies to donate products, and the nonprofits to select the products they need on an online marketplace. Good360 then delivers...

Fiorina, pictured in 1999, says on the campaign trail that she had to burn down Hewlett Packard in order to save it. Carly Fiorina’s business background is an essential part of the story she tells on the campaign trail, offering an “only in America” biographical tale of her journey from secretary to CEO. Yet the crowning achievement of her corporate career -- her tenure as a Fortune 500 CEO at Hewlett-Packard -- isn't central to her stump speech. Repeating the same lines from stop to stop, Fiorina rails against an "inept, corrupt bureaucracy." She offers herself up as a leader...

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...