RIVERSIDE, California—“I am giving very serious consideration to a run for the white house,” former candidate for U.S. Senate in California and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said, as she closed out her comments to a theater full of tea partiers from across California’s Inland Empire region and beyond. She used the opportunity to not only discuss her vision, but also to slam potential 2016 Democrat Presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren.
After recounting the her story of rising from typist to 90-billion-dollar tech company CEO, Fiorina centered her speech on contrasting the left’s and the right’s views on the potential and value of American lives.
“Our founders knew what my mother taught me. Our founders knew that everyone has God-given gifts. Our founders knew that every life has potential. And so they founded a nation on what was at the time a radical and is still is a visionary idea: that here everyone has the right to fulfill their potential,” she said.
Fiorina then contrasted hopeful, confident looks on the faces of female Opportunity International loan clients in India to “exactly the opposite,” flat-eyed and hollow looks in the eyes of Californians she saw during her 2010 campaign challenge for Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat.
“I believe that we must once again become a nation of limitless possibility for everyone in America.” Fiorina continued, “That sense of limitless possibility is who we are.”
“I sense a deep disquiet,” Fiorina said of her experience in cross-country travels, “Because I think people think we are losing that sense of limitless possibility.”
“California is the test case, it is the proof positive of what happens when liberals are in charge for too long,” Fiorina asserted. “In order to return a sense of limitless possibility to every American, we must do some fundamental things. And they require not a tinkering around the edges of government, they require a fundamental reform of government.”
“We have to, for example, disentangle the web of dependence that too many Americans are trapped in,” she offered as part of a general idea of resolution.
“We have to acknowledge that we have the tale of two economies now, crony capitalism is alive and well in America today,” Fiorina said.
“Elizabeth Warren is right when she says people aren’t getting’ a fair shake, she’s right, but she’s dead wrong about the answer to this. Cause, see, only the big, only the powerful, only the wealthy, and only the well connected can deal with big government.”
“I have had, like Hillary Clinton, the great pleasure of flying hundreds of thousands of miles around the globe. Unlike Hillary Clinton, apparently, I know that flying is an activity not an accomplishment,” said Fiorina. She went on to compare and contrast herself against Clinton and remind the crowd of when Clinton’s staff member could not list a single of her boss’ accomplishments and Clinton’s “gimmicky red reset button” interaction with Russian President Putin.
She contrasted the response of Hillary Clinton to the terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi against the reaction of Jordanian President Abdullah to the recent brutal ISIS murder of a Jordanian pilot. Fiorina repeated Clinton’s famous declaration, “what difference does it make?” and responded, “If you are attacked deliberately by a terrorist, it makes all the difference in the world how you respond.”
“I think people believe that we’re losing something. That we’re losing that sense of limitless possibility that has always defined this nation,” she said. “I think people think we’re missing something. I think what people think we’re missing is leadership.” Fiorina continued, “Every problem we have can be solved. Every wound we have is self-inflicted.”
She closed, “Let us together, rise to meet every challenge, let us together truly reform our government and our politics and let us together restore American leadership and the promise of this, the greatest nation history has ever known.”
“Hey, maybe you’re going to have a chance to vote for me now,” Fiorina followed up with, before answering one final question.
An event emcee noted Fiorina’s work on Senator McCain’s campaign and having run her own Senate campaign, then asked, “is there one thing, maybe two things that you think, that can catapult a conservative candidate either in the state of California for Senate or Presidential candidate so that we can get the GOP back in power?”
To which Fiorina answered, “I am giving very serious consideration to a run for the White House. We have to win in 2016. We have to win,” she said.
“I think to win, we need a conservative who can unite this party and only a conservative can unite this party. I think we need a conservative who can land our values and our principles and our beliefs in other people’s lives. So that people who may not know they’re conservatives say, ‘they care about me.’”
She continued, “We do care and we have to be able to convey that to people in our policies, in our tone, in our language.”
“We have to have as well, not just a conservative, not just someone who has the heart for every American, but we also must have, ladies and gentleman, a fearless competitor who will take the fight to the other side every time.”
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana