Who Is Carly Fiorina?

It is hard to stand out in such a large crowd of candidates like the one that the GOP has fielded this year. Carly Fiorina is the only woman running for the republican nomination this year, so she immediately gains a little extra attention just for that. However, she has parlayed her mere position among the nominees into something much more formidable in the last few weeks.

Carly Fiorina was little more than a face in that crowd when the first GOP debate aired. In fact, she was not even allowed into the main circle of 10 front-running nominees but was rather set aside with a half dozen others in a non-debate forum. Each nominee there only had the opportunity to speak his or her piece and be done with it.

She made the most of the moment by coming off as a sober, intelligent candidate. Then she turned that into something more by playing up the idea that she had forgotten her notes and had spoken off the cuff. She earned a more prominent spot in the second GOP debate held earlier this week.

Fiorina's Background

At present, Fiorina is the chairman of a philanthropic organization known as Good 360. She is perhaps most well-known for her time as the CEO of Hewlett Packard (HP). Heading that business from 1999 to 2005, Forbes recognized her as the first woman to manage one of the top-20 companies in the world. She ran for the US Senate in 2010 in California but lost the general election to Barbara Boxer.

Among her more notable political positions are her pro-life stance, her acceptance of climate change theory and her opposition to Obamacare and the Iran nuclear agreement.

What Her Supporters Like

Fiorina's backers proudly point to her business experience as a major qualifier for the presidential role.

Her ideas are moderately conservative. For example, she is only against abortions after 20 weeks though she does state that she would defund Planned Parenthood and seek some route to overturn Roe v Wade. She proclaims support for Proposition 8 in California, which briefly banned same-sex marriage in California but worked to ensure domestic partners benefits for employees while at HP.

What Her Detractors Don't

Conservatives on the hard-right do not like her moderation. However, others have more technical and pointed concerns. For instance, although she has worked extensively in politics, she has never held public office. Furthermore, her business career does not withstand much scrutiny because she was fired from her position as CEO due to falling stock prices and a decline in earnings.

Nevertheless, in polls taken after the second debate, Fiorina appears tied with Doonald Trump. Each of them are now wielding about a quarter of the GOP electorate as the number of weaker candidates begins to decrease.