Fiorina tells Pawleys Island voters she’s the GOP candidate to beat Clinton
Carly Fiorina told a Pawleys Island crowd Monday night that she’s not seeking the Republican nomination to be the first female president, but said she’s the only GOP candidate who would defeat Hillary Clinton in the coming debates and win the election.
“You have to ask yourself, who do you want on the podium in September?” Fiorina questioned the crowd that filled the Tara Theater in the Litchfield Beach and Golf Resort. “Someone who can’t land a punch, someone who insults women, or someone who can beat her?”
“In your heart of hearts, you just can’t wait for me to debate Hillary Clinton,” Fiorina said. “I am the lump of coal in her stocking – she wants to face anyone but me.”
On the world stage, Fiorina pledged to stand with Israel and against Iran and Russia, and she poked fun at opponent Donald Trump’s “bromance” with Vladimir Putin.
She vowed to confront and defeat ISIS on foreign soil and the threat of terrorism in the U.S., and criticized the response of leading Democrats after the recent attacks in California and France.
I am the lump of coal in her stocking.
Carly Fiorina
“It is delusional and dangerous for Hillary Clinton and President Obama to be talking about gun control and climate change while terrorists are murdering people in San Bernardino and Paris,” Fiorina said.
The former CEO of Hewlett Packard said one of her top priorities as commander-in-chief would be to abolish the 73,000-page tax code and replace it with a three-page alternative that has languished in Congress for two decades.
The government’s priorities have gone astray when there are more IRS agents than CIA and FBI agents, combined, she said.
“Does that strike you as a problem?” she asked the crowd, which interrupted her speech several times with applause.
Fiorina pledged to abolish Obamacare, which she said has stripped Americans of affordable health care and instead created a crony capitalist system of insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
The highest calling of a leader is to challenge the status quo and get results.
Carly Fiorina
She also promised to repeal the thicket of federal regulations that she says has strangled the country and created “one giant, bloated, corrupt bureaucracy.”
“The highest calling of a leader is to challenge the status quo and get results,” she said.
Fiorina’s visit came on the heels of South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s exit from the presidential race on Monday. Graham’s campaign failed to catch fire nationally or in his home state, where his polling never reached above single digits behind Fiorina.
However, Fiorina’s polling with likely Republican voters has not fared well either. Nationally, she is tied with U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky for seventh place with a 2.4 percent showing. In South Carolina, Fiorina is in eighth place with 2.3 percent, according to polling averages collected by Real Clear Politics.
The most recent poll conducted in South Carolina by CBS/YouGov on Dec. 14-17 shows New York billionaire Donald Trump with a strong lead among voters with 38 percent. Running in second place is U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas with 23 percent, followed by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida with 12 percent, and Dr. Ben Carson with nine percent.
Carson will make a Grand Strand campaign stop Tuesday beginning at 10 a.m. at Boulineau’s of Cherry Grove Beach.
This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 8:56 PM with the headline "Fiorina tells Pawleys Island voters she’s the GOP candidate to beat Clinton."