Fiorina running on her record of leadership

CEDAR RAPIDS - Carly Fiorina wrapped up her remarks to a Cedar Rapids breakfast crowd by quoting former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's comment that she was 'not content to manage the decline of a great nation.”

Unfortunately, Fiorina said Saturday, 'We have been managing the decline of this great nation for quite long enough now.”

Calling for a more accountable, transparent federal government, the rebuilding of the U.S. military and an end to the crony capitalism that enables 'the big, the powerful, the wealthy and well-connected,” Fiorina said she's ready 'to lead the resurgence of this great nation.”

She believes voters are looking for someone 'who is prepared to make the tough calls when a tough call is necessary, someone who is ready to stand up and be held accountable for that call and someone who understands what accountability is.”

Fiorina, a virtual unknown when she entered the race, but now is running third in national poll averages and fourth in Iowa, told about 160 people at the Linn County Republican Party's Reagan Breakfast at The Hotel at Kirkwood Center that as a result of her background and experience she's that leader.

Asked how she would respond to attacks that she was fired as CEO of HP and oversaw 30,000 job cuts from 1999 to 2005, Fiorina said, 'with the facts.”

During her tenure, which coincided with the worst recession in the technology sector in 25 years, Fiorina said 'loads” of companies went under, unemployment in the tech sector was above 9 percent and the Nasdaq tanked during that time, she said.

'Remember Gateway?” she asked, referring to an Iowa tech company that disappeared because 'unfortunately, they didn't make the decisions to save those jobs and their company.”

'But I did,” Fiorina said. As a result, she claimed to save 80,000 jobs and grow HP employment to 150,000-plus, quadruple cash flow and the company's growth rate, and triple innovation to 15 patents a day.

'We went from lagging behind to leading in every single product and every single market,” Fiorina said.

'I will run on that record all day long,” she said.

Fiorina can be seen on Iowa Public Television's Iowa Press at noon Sunday and online at www.IPTV.org. She will be back in Iowa - along with nine other GOP presidential hopefuls - for the Republican Party of Iowa's Growth and Opportunity Party Oct. 31 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.