It didn’t take long after the “Happy Hour debate” concluded for a consensus to emerge. “She won,” the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza proclaimed. “By a lot.”
PJ Media’s own Roger Simon thinks she won the debate, and so does Vox‘s Ezra Klein.
Robby Soave at Reason says, “The internet has spoken: Carly Fiorina won the Fox News ‘kids table’ debate in a landslide.”
And Fox News reports: “Political analysts appear to be in agreement that Carly Fiorina is the clear winner of the first debate.”
None of this surprises me. I’ve been impressed by Fiorina all year. She delivers every speech with precision and clarity, and doesn’t falter in interviews — even hostile ones. Carly likes to go on the offensive, but she can take a punch, too.
Cillizza wrote, “What made Fiorina stand out — more than what she said on any particular topic — was that she looked up to the moment. She was prepared and poised. She rarely glanced at notes. She spoke freely and easily. She had the “it” factor.”
Carly’s had the “it” factor all year. It’s beyond me why she’s not a top tier candidate. Maybe she will be after tonight’s performance.
When the questioning turned to Donald Trump Thursday evening, the formidable businesswoman was prepared. She went after the GOP front-runner by connecting him to the Clintons.
“I didn’t get a phone call from Bill Clinton before I jumped in the race, did you? Did any of you get a phone call from BilL Clinton? I didn’t. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t given money to the [Clinton] Foundation or donated to his wife’s Senate campaign,” Fiorina said. “Since he has changed his mind on amnesty, on healthcare and on abortion I would just ask what are the principles by which he would govern?”
Fiorina also congratulated Trump for being the current front runner and gave him credit for tapping into an anger toward the political class.
“They’re sick as politics as usual,” she said. “The political class has failed you, that’s just a fact and that’s what Donald Trump taps into.”
In her concluding comments, Fiorina hit not only the Democrat frontrunner, but “the Democrat party that is undermining the very character of this nation.”
“Hillary Clinton lies about Benghazi, she lies about emails, she’s still defending Planned Parenthood, and she is still her party’s front-runner,” Fiorina noted, her subtext being, “what in the heck is wrong with Democrat voters that they can still support this woman?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMQBB9ihA9U
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