At press time Fiorina, 61, was tied for seventh in an ABC News/Washington Post poll. She'll have to do better than that to have any chance at the nomination, but win or lose, she'll have made a mark—she's only the fourth major female Republican presidential candidate in history. So I caught up with her on the trail in Franklin, New Hampshire, to learn a little more about who she is.

S.E. Cupp: As a teen, you lived in England, Ghana, and North Carolina. Was moving around that often tough, or did you like it?

Carly Fiorina: Both. It was pretty cool going to an English girls' school [in London] at 14 and getting to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. I loved living in West Africa, in Ghana. The hardest move for me was when I moved to North Carolina. Everyone else was in their senior year, with their friends. And I was leaving all my friends and having to make new friends. [But it] makes you resilient.

SEC: You graduated from Stanford. Then you attended UCLA law school for one semester and dropped out—and joined a real estate firm as a secretary. What was the Carly plan at this point?

CF: I'm, like, 23 years old. I'm reeling from the fact that I hated law school. But I'm also reeling from the fact that I quit. I wasn't a quitter. I was a Goody Two-shoes. I was a parent pleaser, and my parents [were] appalled: "What are you going to do with your life?" I have zero plan. But the [company's] founders, after about six months, say: "You can do more. We want to introduce you to our business." They took a chance on me, which we all need.

SEC: You met your husband of 30 years, Frank, at AT&T. What was that dynamic like, working in the same place?

CF: Well, I was a brand-new salesperson [in AT&T's government sales office]. I had this customer with a problem, and everyone kept saying, "We can't solve this problem." I was like, "No, I'm not gonna give up." Finally someone said, "You need to go talk to this technical expert." And the first thing that I remember—aside from the fact that he was very cute—is that he took me seriously; he said, "We can solve that." For a long time we didn't do anything. We thought, We work together. Then the company split, and he went to work [elsewhere]. Problem solved!

SEC: You were approached about the HP CEO job in 1999. You knew there were tremen­dous challenges ahead. Did you ever think, Maybe I shouldn't take this risk?

CF: Well, sure. It was a very long recruitment process. They were testing me, but I was testing them: "Are you ready to do what has to be done?" I wanted changes. But I say change is like heaven—everybody wants to go there; nobody wants to die…. And I concluded, yes, they were prepared. I've learned in my life that if we don't do things because we're afraid of them, that's not a good reason not to do things.

SEC: You've defended your record at HP. [She was forced out of the company after nearly six years; at the September CNN debate Fiorina said she led Hewlett-Packard through the worst technology recession in 25 years.] At some point might it be useful to talk about some of your failures in a way that lets women know it's OK to fail?

CF: First of all the word failure for anyone, I think, is the wrong word. Was it Thomas Edison who said something like, There is no such thing as failure, just learning what not to do? You cannot make the most of yourself in life if you don't take risks. And risk taking, by its nature, is mistake making. I think women feel a lot of pressure to be perfect, [but] if you want to fulfill your potential, you have to take risks. And that means you will make mistakes. You will get challenged. You will be criticized. Criticism is not failure. And I'm here to tell you that.