The first federal lawmaker to endorse Carly Fiorina for president is now defending the rising Republican candidate against a slew of attacks by Democratic leaders.
Shortly after the second GOP debate, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., announced that she would be supporting Fiorina, who is second in the Washington Examiner’s presidential power rankings, after previously declining to endorse a 2016 hopeful.
“Starting as a secretary and fighting her way to the very top, it is clear this is not a woman who was handed things; she had to fight for every bit of success she has achieved,” Jenkins told the Topeka Capital-Journal at the time.
Now Jenkins is fighting too. The Kansas congresswoman penned an op-ed Wednesday defending Fiorina’s tenure as CEO of tech giant Hewlett-Packard against attempts by Democrats to brand her as a “failed leader.”
“Carly Fiorina was able to grow the size and scope of Hewlett-Packard, doubling the revenues, tripling the number of patents per day … and quadrupling the growth rate,” Jenkins wrote in The Hill, noting that the aforementioned occurred at a time when the tech industry was grappling with major setbacks due to the “dot-com” crash in 2001.
“Before Carly came to HP, they were stagnant,” Jenkins continued. “From day one, her first priority was to get rid of the unnecessary bureaucracy within HP that was making things harder for customers and employees to communicate.”
“This is exactly what we need on Day One from our next president,” she added.
According to Jenkins, who is vice chair of the House Republican Conference and the fifth-highest ranking GOP member of the House, Fiorina is “battle-tested.”
The businesswoman’s decision to merge HP with the computer corporation Compaq, despite widespread opposition to the merger among her colleagues, proves “she isn’t afraid of a challenge,” Jenkins wrote.
“Carly won’t propose taxing 529’s one day and put it in her budget and then fold a few days later when faced with a strong opposition … [she] will stand up for what she knows is right,” Jenkins wrote.
“That is the kind of woman I want to be working with in the White House,” she added. “I want a strong, disciplined woman who is going to put good sound conservative economic and social policies forward and then fight for them with the same passion she fought with at HP.”
One aspect of Fiorina’s track record was noticeably absent from Jenkins’ op-ed. The congresswoman made no mention of the 30,000 employees laid off while Fiorina was at the helm of HP, a figure Democrats have repeatedly used to try to spoil Fiorina’s image as someone who cares about American workers.
Fiorina currently polls at third place in the GOP field with 12 percent support among Republican voters in the latest Quinnipiac University poll. Though 40 percent of voters in the same poll said they “haven’t heard enough” to form an opinion about Fiorina, those who have were more likely to view her favorably than unfavorably (39-21 percent.)
The female GOP hopeful is set to arrive in South Carolina Friday, followed by a weekend of campaigning in New Hampshire.
