As Her Communications Skills Make Clear, Carly Fiorina Is Fast Becoming an Excellent Politician
if you paid attention to last night’s debate — and to her subsequent interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, you’d have seen Fiorina put on a master class in political communications.
Good politicians are like good trial lawyers — when you watch them, you’re scarcely aware that you’re watching a professional at work. They are compelling without seeming artificial, and they often leave you thinking, “That’s exactly how I’d put it.” Consequently, people tend to dislike watching politicians speak not so much because they’re politicians but because they’re simply terrible at a key part of their job — communications. They sound like they’re reciting talking points. They look like they’re arrogant, constantly promoting themselves. They bob and weave and evade questions, coming across as a bizarre combination of boastful and timid. In other words, they’re annoying.
Don’t look now, but Carly Fiorina is becoming a good politician — a very good one. Yes, she’s running as the quintessential outsider, the citizen-CEO who’s never held political office. Yes, she’s going to remind us of that fact hundreds of times before the primary is over. But if you paid attention to last night’s debate — and to her subsequent interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews — you saw Fiorina put on a master class in political communications. Take her response to a question about whether she should compare herself to Margaret Thatcher:
In one minute flat, she (1) reminded viewers that underdogs frequently win presidential primaries; (2) told her secretary-to-CEO story life story; (3) shared facts about how that experience qualifies her for president; and (4) ended with an inspiring reminder of our nation’s potential. She did it all in a tone that was appropriate to the setting. With no crowd present, she wasn’t going for applause lines (her competitors kept speaking like they were expecting laughs or cheers). Instead, she spoke plainly and clearly to the viewers at home. Then, right after the debate, Fiorina eviscerated Chris Matthews on MSNBC:
In front of a hostile interviewer — who kept baiting her into sweeping, inflammatory statements that she’d have to backtrack from — she decried “sanitized soundbites” but then provided excellent soundbite after excellent soundbite indicting Hillary Clinton’s record. I would ask her why she declared victory in Iraq in 2011. Why she called Bashar al-Assad a positive reformer. Why she thought she could stop Putin’s ambition — a man I have met — with a gimmicky red reset button. I’ll ask her why she got every single foreign-policy issue wrong as Secretary of State. That’s how I’ll debate her. On the issues. Then, she succinctly stated one of the key — and most offensive — Benghazi lies: namely, Clinton’s blaming a video for the attack — even saying so while standing “over the bodies of the fallen.” It was “very clear from all the data,” Fiorina explained, that Clinton and President Obama knew that Benghazi was a “purposeful terrorist attack,” and “they understood it while it was going on.” Matthews responded by saying, “I see why you stood out tonight.”
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