Amidst tuna salad, ham, roast beef and chicken and egg salad sandwiches, Carly Fiorino met with area residents at the Deering Town Hall in Deering, NH on Friday. A classic town hall, though updated, it had the stage backdrop of a tranquil scene surrounded by ads for local businesses. It was a quintessential New England setting for the event.
I have several observations of the event and campaign. Carly has appointed Ovide Lamontagne as her state chairman and was introduced by Marilinda Garcia. Ovide is the twice defeated GOP candidate for governor. Each defeat was by nearly 20 percentage points, Marilinda was defeated for congress in 2014 by 10 percentage points. Both Ovide and Marilinda tried to make analogies between their campaigns and Carly’s…they didn’t work. Carly has yet to win a campaign and neither of her key supporters have either.
Carly entered, was reserved in her comments. She talked about accountability, like she faced as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. She pulled a distraction on an over statement. She said she had made HP “the” most successful tech company…then paused as some new people came in and welcomed them. When she returned to her comment she restated that she had made HP “one” of the most successful tech companies.
She then when on to discuss her Blueprint to take our country back saying that while there are lot of things to do to take the country back, these six things she sees as the most important. She then said that these would be her goals for the first two years. I am not sure that it a realistic goal. But she isn’t the first candidate to not have realistic goals.
In taking questions she seemed to make those asking them content with her answer, though in some cases she didn’t answer the question and moved on to the next when the questioner wanted to followup. The most pointed response came to a question about Roe v Wade and women’s rights. The questioner asking if she supported women’s rights to control their own bodies and would appoint justices who do. Rather than talking about women’s rights in general, Carly focused only on abortion and told the woman that she probably won’t be voting for her as she supports life at conception, no exceptions. As this photo shows, Carly looked a bit bored with the questioner in this instance.
Her departure left me a bit dismayed. Other candidates who have had to leave for other appointments will say to those trying to ask questions that they apologize for leaving. Carly, with a dozen or more people waiting to talk to her simply turned, put on her coat and left without saying anything to those waiting. The reaction from those people wasn’t on the positive side.
Mike Munhall Photos 