Two of the 2016 Republican presidential field’s most accomplished speakers, Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., skipped the big Lincoln Day dinner in Des Moines, Iowa over the weekend. But the dinner, which featured 11 candidates addressing the crowd for a strictly-enforced ten minutes each, saw the emergence of another star speaker in the GOP ranks.

Since making a good impression on Iowans at a similar event in January, Carly Fiorina has honed her stump speech to a fine edge. Starting with her own secretary-to-CEO success story, she touches a lot of bases — Hillary Clinton, American exceptionalism, business regulation, taxes, the size of government, the nature of leadership, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Israel, Iran and more. She delivers the message with an intensity that almost forces people to listen.