Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, a Republican presidential candidate, is sending a clear signal to the national press: I’m on your side and Hillary Clinton isn’t.
Fiorina, a relative unknown compared to Clinton and her Republican competition, has invited the news media in the last few weeks to ask questions at events in early primary states and participated in dozens of media interviews (including with the Washington Examiner).
Meanwhile, Clinton has only given national reporters one significant opportunity to question her on a swirl of scandals engulfing her early campaign. It lasted five minutes.
Fiorina’s team wants the media to remember which woman is being more accessible.
Fiorina is scheduled to speak at the South Carolina Republican Legislative Caucus early Wednesday afternoon, and will then hold a scrum for reporters outside a hotel venue where Clinton will coincidentally be having her own campaign event. But reporters will not be allowed inside Clinton’s event.
“We know it must be hard covering the ‘Hillary for America But Against Transparency’ campaign,” Fiorina’s spokeswoman said in an email to reporters Tuesday. “And if the last few weeks have shown us anything, it’s that the Clinton Way isn’t about change, small businesses, the middle class, reshuffling the deck, or, certainly, trust in leadership. It’s all about the Clintons.”
“We’ve answered hundreds of questions from reporters because we believe the American people will not and should not elect a president that can’t answer for her record, won’t explain her positions or for whom the truth is whatever she can get away with,” it added.
The strategy for Fiorina’s campaign is to maximize as much free media attention as possible in order to increase name recognition. That even applies to ABC News, where anchor George Stephanopoulos is under fire for donating $75,000 to Clinton’s nonprofit Clinton Foundation.
While some conservatives said they didn’t think it was appropriate for Stephanopoulos to continue covering the 2016 presidential race, Fiorina took a different route. “Carly does interviews with Hillary apologists pretty often as you can see from our press coverage,” said a statement at the time from Fiorina’s spokesperson, maintaining that the businesswoman would welcome interviews from Stephanopoulos.
Prior to that, on May 11, Fiorina’s campaign crowed that just eight days after officially launching her presidential bid, she had taken 322 questions, while Clinton, who had been in the race for about a month, had only taken eight.
“This is in stark contrast to many other candidates — and most especially to Hillary Clinton,” said a campaign email blast.