Former technology CEO says her chance of running is greater than 90% and suggests that Hillary Clinton’s ‘character is flawed’

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

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Former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina all but confirmed on Sunday that she would be the first – and likely only – woman to enter the race to be Republican presidential candidate in 2016.

Talking on Fox News Sunday, Fiorina said that there was a “very high” chance she would run, adding that the probability was “higher than 90%”.

With her rivals making similar noises, Fiorina told Fox she was making sure she had the right team in place and the right support but expected to make an announcement by late April or early May.

Fiorina batted off suggestions she was pitching for the vice-presidential role, telling host Chris Wallace she would answer that question when he asked it of the other, male candidates.

“I come from a world outside of politics where track records and accomplishments count – words don’t,” said Fiorina. “If I run for president, it’s because I can win the job and it’s because I can do the job.”

The daughter of a Texas law professor and an artist, Fiorina, 60, is a law school dropout who started her career as a receptionist before becoming a management trainee at telecoms giant AT&T, working her way up to become one of the world’s highest-profile female executives. In 1998, she was named the “most powerful woman in business” by Fortune magazine, in its inaugural listing.

With the presidential field finally emerging – Senator Ted Cruz of Texas having declared his candidacy this week – Fiorina has been positioning herself as likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s loudest critic, attacking the only other woman likely to enter the race on issues including her use of a personal email account while she was secretary of state.

“In effect, @HillaryClinton told us to trust her,” Fiorina said on Twitter. “Nothing in her track record suggests we should do so.”

She continued her attacks on Sunday, comparing “emailgate” to Watergate.

“Hillary Clinton lacks a track record of accomplishment,” she said. “She is not candid, which suggests her character is flawed.”

Fiorina said news that Clinton had wiped servers of 30,000 private emails reminded her of President Richard Nixon’s excuses when portions of his tape recordings went missing after the Watergate scandal broke.

“Her saying all those emails that were erased were just her and Bill chatting is a little bit like Richard Nixon saying that those erased moments on the tape were he and Pat talking. It’s ridiculous – of course there was more there than that,” said Fiorina.

Asked why people should vote for her, Fiorina said: “Because I have a deep understanding of how the economy actually works having started as a secretary and becoming the chief executive of the largest technology company in the world. Because I understand how the world works … Because I understand technology … Because I understand bureaucracies, how they work and how you need to change them.”

Since leaving the business world, Fiorina has concentrated her efforts on politics. She was an adviser to Senator John McCain during his failed 2008 presidential bid and the loser in a 2010 attempt to oust the California senator Barbara Boxer. Fiorina has also been courting technology executives in Silicon Valley, a rich source of funding that has traditionally favored Democrats.

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In February, Fiorina and likely Republican presidential rivals Cruz and Rand Paul addressed a Washington conference of technologists organised by Lincoln Labs, a libertarian technology lobby group.

So far, her message is similar to that of her Republican rivals: cut government spending, encourage business.

“Washington DC has become a vast, unaccountable bureaucracy. It’s been growing for 40 years, we have no idea how our money is spent,” said Fiorina. “How many inspector general reports do we need to read that say, you know, you can watch porn all day long and get paid exactly the same way as someone who is trying to do their job?”

But while Fiorina is trumpeting her tenure at Hewlett-Packard as a key asset – one that distinguishes her from Republican and Democratic rivals – her leadership of the tech icon was highly controversial. Fiorina has been named one of the US’s worst chief executives on several occasions. In her five-and-a-half years in the top job, the company’s stock price almost halved and she fired 30,000 US workers.

Dismissed by the board, she was given a $21m severance package as well as $21m in stock options and pension benefits.

“I’m very proud of our record,” said Fiorina. “We went from a market laggard to market leader.”

After her Fox News interview, Fiorina posted on Twitter. “I come from a world where track records and accomplishments count,” she wrote.

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” was the first reply.

‘Unlike Hillary, I have actually accomplished something’

Hillary Clinton speaks during a news conference at the United Nations this month. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Clinton may not have declared her presidential candidacy yet, but Fiorina knows whom she is running against. The likely Republican candidate has spent much of her time in the last few months setting out the case against Clinton 2:

To Iowa conservatives in January: “Like Hillary Clinton, I, too, have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles around the globe, but unlike her, I have actually accomplished something.”

In the same speech, referring to the deadly 2012 attack on a US compound in Benghazi, Libya: “Unlike Hillary Clinton, I know … that our ambassador to Libya and three other brave Americans were killed in a deliberate terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9/11.”



To Fox News in March: “Titles are not accomplishments. I’ve had a lot of titles. They’re just titles. They’re just positions. What counts is: what have you done? What have you accomplished? And in particular, what have you, Mrs Clinton, accomplished on behalf of the American people? Have you kept us safer? No. What have you accomplished, honestly, on behalf of women and girls, which she talks a lot about?”

