Fiorina’s moment
by digby
Today Amy Chozick in the New York Times profiled Carly Fiorina and examined her newfound salience in the race:
Early in her candidacy Mrs. Fiorina, whose corporate leadership style has been described as brash, proved eager to sharply criticize Mrs. Clinton, while other candidates hesitated. Her gender provided a shield from what many Republicans assumed would be repercussions against a man attacking Mrs. Clinton so early and often.
The attention earned Mrs. Fiorina a special kind of support: donations from Republicans who did not consider her their first choice, but who viewed her as an important voice on a male-dominated stage. These included a “super PAC” that has been supporting Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, which gave $500,000 to a “super PAC” backing Mrs. Fiorina.
At least for now, Mrs. Fiorina said she was fine being a second choice. “I have heard donors say, ‘You know, I’m supporting someone else but I want to be supportive of you, as well,’ ” she said.
Yes. I wrote about this earlier in the week for Salon, not that it’s a particularly earthshattering observation.They are supporting her because they believe that as a woman she can attack Clinton much more harshly than a man without incurring charges of sexism. (That’s wrong, because women can be sexist too — just ask Phyllis Schlafly.)
I was surprised that Chozick didn’t mention this in her article though:
. @nickconfessore Fiorina finance chairs told me supporters of other candidates have thrown them $$$ to have a woman in race attacking HRC.
— Amy Chozick (@amychozick) July 31, 2015
Seems relevant, no?
Anyway, Fiorina’s having her moment. She’s completely unqualified to be president but then that’s how the GOP “woman outreach” for candidates seems to work. For her sake, I hope she’s a little bit more disciplined about what she says on open mics this time.
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