Posted on 05/14/2010 3:50:04 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Is Carly Fiorina pro-life? The question has come to the fore of late, as she publicly contemplates a candidacy for United States Senate against Barbara Boxer — and as her opponent for the California Republicans’ nomination in that race, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, has publicly questioned her pro-life credentials. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the DeVore campaign, so read the following with Reagan’s appropriated Russian dictum to “trust, but verify,” in mind.) An examination of the Fiorina record on this topic reveals worrying inconsistencies.
Any review of Fiorina’s pro-life convictions must acknowledge that for the past 20 months, when pressed on the issue, she has declared herself “pro-life.” This is laudable, and as it should be: the Republican Party is the natural political home for the majority of Americans who do not believe in the Democratic agenda of unrestricted abortion-on-demand, and so it makes sense that a would-be Republican nominee for office would endorse that point of view.
Unfortunately, it is all too easy to question the depth of Fiorina’s commitment to the pro-life cause. These questions range from the legitimate to the ungenerous. Among the latter would be noting, as many have, that Fiorina never uttered a public word on the topic, nor lent any support to pro-life activism, before embarking upon her political career. Indeed, pre-2008 media reports on Fiorina almost uniformly describe her as “pro-choice” — for example, this 2004 San Jose Mercury-News piece, in which “Republican insiders said Fiorina [is] moderate and pro-choice.” Like the father welcoming the prodigal son, we should laud the turn to what’s right. We should also note what it signifies: if Carly Fiorina says she is pro-life now, that is at minimum evidence of a California Republican base that embraces a conservativism and compassion that do it profound credit.
Legitimate questions about Fiorina’s pro-life credentials arise from her activism as a McCain-campaign spokesperson in the 2008 election. (Readers may recall that she served as our party nominee’s surrogate until a series of foot-in-mouth moments forced the campaign to withdraw her from public view.) During this period, concurrent with her first-ever public pronouncements of “pro-life” sympathies, Carly Fiorina was dispatched by the McCain campaign to court a series of pro-abortion audiences. The record of these appearances is, to be charitable, deeply strange for an avowed pro-lifer.
A short sampling of events, gleaned from a quick survey of press from that period, is as follows:
* In June 2008, Fiorina assured a group of politically active women (reported in some outlets to have been discontented Clinton supporters) in Columbus, Ohio, that John McCain “has never signed on to efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade.” Why would a pro-lifer regard this as a positive attribute to be touted? Why would a pro-lifer sign on as a surrogate for that sort of candidate?
* In August 2008, Fiorina stood next to one Debra Bartoshevich, a Hillary Clinton partisan, at a press conference, and did not correct Bartoshevich when she said, “Going back to 1999, John McCain did an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle saying that overturning Roe v. Wade would not make any sense, because then women would have to have illegal abortions.” Why would a pro-lifer stand on stage and remain silent when the candidate for whom she speaks is portrayed as pro-abortion?
* In September 2008, Fiorina used the phrase, “reproductive rights,” “at a tea in Minneapolis for business women attending the Republican National Convention,” to describe the ability to secure an abortion. It is quite possible to read too much into a turn of phrase — yet veteran pro-life activists know well that “reproductive rights” is emphatically not how the push for abortion-on-demand is described on our side. It’s a curious error, and a red flag to those invested in the movement.
It seems fairly clear that Carly Fiorina was asked to deliver the message to some groups that John McCain was not particularly pro-life. For whatever reason, the McCain campaign viewed her as a good and trustworthy carrier of this message. We are therefore presented with the strange spectacle, in 2008 and since, of Fiorina proclaiming her pro-life sentiments for the first time, even as she amassed a record of publicly delivering a series of cues to the contrary.
We are left with the question of what to make of this. Was Carly Fiorina simply being a good soldier and demonstrating poor judgment? Or was she giving a wink and a nod to her actual, as opposed to her stated, views? Charity demands we assume the former — even if it is not the mark of a presumptive United States Senator. Being personally pro-life, of course, is not the same as being actively and meaningfully pro-life in the public square. After all, even Jerry Brown is “personally pro-life.”
Pro-lifers should congratulate Carly Fiorina for her belief in the sanctity of life. But if she wants to claim it as a credit to her electoral ambitions, she has a long road ahead — and some explaining to do about the road behind.
— Joshua Treviño is a consultant for U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore, who has a 100% rating on life and family issues from the Capitol Resource Institute.
She's a breast cancer survivor and when you have cancer your hair is the first to go. Duh.
She is a dumbell running HP into the ground.
Previously she was executive vice-president of AT&T. There must have been a reason why HP hired her. Sure it didn't turn out the way she expected it, but that's what happens in the business world. Failure is always part of the equation and unlike public office, it makes you a stronger person rather than being rewarded for it.
She has gone way too far most likely because she is a female. Let her stay home and wash the dishes.
Nice sexist comment. I thought conservatives were all for achievement and advancement? Would it have been better if she was part of NOW?
And I hold highly suspect Sarah Palin endorsing her after her endorsing John Mccain. Have they gotten to you Sarah?
She endorsed Carly only because DeVore has been running for 11 months and hasn't even cracked $500,000 in fundraising, and hasn't generated grassroots support until now. Now conservatives are supposed to bust their asses for him when they didn't have the guts to do it last year. It's called political reality and looking at the big picture. Sarah wants Boxer gone and Campbell gone, and with her influence the odds are that Carly would be more conservative than an Olympia Snowe. If you can't raise money in expensive CA you're toast. Capiche?
This is known as hearsay and wouldn't stand up in a court of law. I'll go with her word rather than a 3rd party anonymous opinion of her. Who's to say that source knows what he/she was talking about, or wasn't some potential rival trying to undermine her for a later run against her in some primary race?
Further, just because she says of McCain that he never was for a repeal of Roe v. Wade doesn't mean she's pro-choice. It just means she was delivering her message on behalf of a campaign she was working for, trying to bring in the PUMA-type female voters for McCain, voters who were t-ed off at Hillary's loss in the Dem primary and uncomfortable with Obama's radicalism. It was a tough race where any bleed off of Democratic votes for McCain was seen as giving him a big advantage. That's what this outreach was about, trying to make PUMAs comfortable with McCain. That's called good politics. I don't think it says a thing about where Fiorina's head is at on abortion. She was just being the good soldier. It certainly isn't more an indicator of her thinking than her unequivocal statement of "I'm pro-life."
Finally, consider the source here--a Devore operative.
This year I’m ABB and ABM. “Anyone But Babs” and “Anyone But Moonbeam”! Trust me. Even the worst RINO can’t be as bad as those two have been for California!
This isn't really true. Fiorina shepperded the Compaq merger with HP which ultimately in the long run made HP a much stronger company, helping to put them at the top of the heap in the computer hardware market and taking them from being more than a company supplying peripherals. The Compaq merger as any merger involved short term pain of layoffs to eliminate redundant positions and also a big hit to profits from the buy out. But that doesn't tell the story of the good she did at HP and how she helped to create a much bigger, stronger company in her wake. Most mergers involve the dominant company taking a short term hit on their numbers. In HP's case, they came out of it much more profitable and much more dominant in the industry. Most business experts consider her time at HP to have been a success on the strength of the legacy she created for the company.
I’m not from California but DeVore sounds like the candidate most grounded in Conservative values.
Sadly, even if Roe v Wade is overturned, California will still allow them, probably until forever! Only a constitutional amendment outlawing these procedures nationwide will change that. Don't hold your breath, tho.
We should not destroy CF's chances (or any Republican candidate's chances) by strongly second-guessing their statements in the primary. In all reality, if elected, they will have almost no opportunity to effect this issue vis a vis California.
HP was complacent and mired in the status-quo prior to Carly’s arrival. What happened is that the Hewlett and Packard heirs forced her out of the company. I wouldn’t say she ran the company into the ground it was more like the equivalent of taking over a losing team and getting fired for having a few more losing seasons.
After looking at the “Carly Fiornia on the First Admendment” video that is attached to all the threads lately, I am wondering if Carly plays for the ‘other’ team. No normal woman wears her hair that short, and that leather jacket.
She probably has had cancer and is probably getting her hair back following Chemotherapy.
Why don't you read the thread before making an ass out of yourself.
All I need to know about Fiorina is contained in the speech she made:
CARLY FIORINA
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
SEPTEMBER 26, 2001
“TECHNOLOGY, BUSINESS AND OUR WAY OF LIFE: WHAT’S NEXT”
© Copyright 2001 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P
All rights reserved. Do not use without written permission from HP.
If posting an excerpt here infringes copyright, you may wish to remove.
EXCERPT:
There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world.
It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins.
One of its languages became the universal language of much of the world, the bridge between the peoples of a hundred lands. Its armies were made up of people of many nationalities, and its military protection allowed a degree of peace and prosperity that had never been known. The reach of this civilization’s commerce extended from Latin America to China, and everywhere in between.
And this civilization was driven more than anything, by invention. Its architects designed buildings that defied gravity. Its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption. Its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for disease. Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration.
Its writers created thousands of stories. Stories of courage, romance and magic. Its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things.
When other nations were afraid of ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the knowledge alive, and passed it on to others.
While modern Western civilization shares many of these traits, the civilization I’m talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, and enlightened rulers like Suleiman the Magnificent.
Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage. The technology industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians. Sufi poet-philosophers like Rumi challenged our notions of self and truth. Leaders like Suleiman contributed to our notions of tolerance and civic leadership.
And perhaps we can learn a lesson from his example: It was leadership based on meritocracy, not inheritance. It was leadership that harnessed the full capabilities of a very diverse population–that included Christianity, Islamic, and Jewish traditions.
This kind of enlightened leadership — leadership that nurtured culture, sustainability, diversity and courage — led to 800 years of invention and prosperity.
In dark and serious times like this, we must affirm our commitment to building societies and institutions that aspire to this kind of greatness. More than ever, we must focus on the importance of leadership– bold acts of leadership and decidedly personal acts of leadership.
With that, I’d like to open up the conversation and see what we, collectively, believe about the role of leadership.
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/speeches/fiorina/minnesota01.html
Thankyou, lionheart. :)
Hear hear, Jim. That’s why we have primaries, right? Divisions within a party are vetted. Imagine the outrage if Palin had endorsed Rudy Tooty, who is actually to the right of Fiorina.
Bad move by Palin.
Now I am informed thank you. Didn’t know she had cancer. I do the dishes around here as my wife does the cooking. I have no problem with dishwashing do you?
You mention conservatives. Would you care to define your view of ‘conservatism’ please? Tell me what makes you a conservative. What is it you wish to conserve?
I’d bet anything she is NOT pro-life. Pro abortion types obfuscate.
Do a little research before making stupid comments, who is the dumbell now? And I'm not even a Fiorina fan.
Good article. I see nothing in her actions or words that convinces me that Fiorina is pro-life.
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