Why Carly Fiorina Will Terminate “The Entertainer”

Fiorina rises to 2nd in CNN poll conducted post-September debate. Photo: Rex

Delivering cool, calm, and crisp answers, all while driving the dagger straight through his candidacy, Carly Fiorina answered Donald’s Trump’s now infamous sexist remark against her with one amazing line: “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.”

Until the September 16th CNN debate, Donald Trump, “The Entertainer,” dominated the Republican nomination in both media coverage and the polls. But last night, Carly Fiorina put “the Entertainer” on the defensive for the first time in this race, and she decisively won every single spar they had throughout the three-hour debate.

Carly Fiorina came into the debate with the bar set high. If she didn’t definitively win against “The Entertainer,” her momentum built off of her stellar breakout moment in the first debate would have fizzled. Instead, she won–and now she’s set to rise in the polls while winning over the anti-establishment, outsider support from both Trump and Ben Carson.

Fiorina possesses the appeal of a Washington outsider with charisma, energy and punch-lines, while also displaying a deep knowledge of political issues, particularly foreign policy. In fact, she seems to be more well versed on the issues than most the career politicians who shared the stage with her last night.

Instead of giving foreign-policy sound-bytes dumbed down to a toddler’s understanding, Carly Fiorina spoke to American voters as the adults that they are. “The Entertainer” had previously done well by angrily evoking emotions without saying a peep of substance. Last night, Carly Fiorina busted his empty bubble.

Carly Fiorina’s succinct yet detailed answers on the issues marks the moment the 2016 Republican primary became about solutions rather than empty rhetoric, a phenomenon currently plaguing the nation on both sides of the aisle. As Fiorina said during the debate, “We have spent 12 minutes talking about the past. Let’s talk about the future.”

The national blog Vox (the one that’s not Georgetown’s campus blog) has already launched a preemptive attack against Fiorina’s rise, doubting her actual grasp of policy. “Her answer on Russia, for instance, was bizarre,” the blog states. Vox was dumbfounded as to why Fiorina laid out a strategy to take on Putin and check Russia’s growing aggression by rebuilding The Sixth Fleet, sending a few thousand more troops to Germany, conducting vigorous NATO exercises in the Baltic states and building the missile defense system in Eastern Europe, starting in Poland.

The blog continues, “It’s hard to see why any of them would convince Putin to change course.” Unfortunately for Vox, they have demonstrated that their own grasp of complex foreign policy issues is equivalent to that of an angsty teenager in high school.

Any student who half-slept through “Intro to International Relations” at Georgetown knows that ‘signaling’ matters in international politics. They know regional strategy matters. No matter what classification of realists, liberalists, constructivists, or a blend they are, they know that alliances matter. They know that grand strategy matters, and that it is a driving force behind a state’s actions in an anarchic international system.

Carly Fiorina is currently the only candidate in either party who has a clear and powerful vision for American foreign policy. Marco Rubio has won political points for sounding hawkish on defense, but while he talks of what we shouldn’t do, Carly Fiorina repeatedly lays out both an aggressive and realistic plan to ensure the 21st century is the American century–not the Chinese or Russian century.

Carly Fiorina has tapped into the anti-Washington and anti-politician faction of the GOP. She has tapped into voters who are yearning for a candidate who “speaks their mind.” She has tapped into voters who are seeking a candidate prepared for complex domestic and international issues the President will have to deal with every day.

Encapsulating her campaign in one sentence, Fiorina stated, “I am prepared to lead the resurgence of this great nation.” We finally have a candidate who can credibly say those words.

Alexander Bobroske (SFS ‘17), is a member of the Georgetown University College Republicans.