http://www.nationalreview.com/node/424419/print The Myth of Fiorina’s ‘Moderate’ 2010 Campaign
By Jim Geraghty — September 22, 2015
It didn’t take long for the outlines of a Carly Fiorina backlash to emerge.
Talk-radio host Mark Levin is much less impressed than other conservatives by the former HP CEO’s breakout performance in last week’s GOP presidential debate. He charges that Fiorina embraced moderate, “establishment” positions in her only previous run for office, a 2010 bid for the Senate in California.
“I remember in the 2010 GOP Senate primary race in California she staked out the moderate Republican position against State Representative Chuck DeVore,” Levin wrote. “She didn’t sound like a traditional, Reagan conservative back then.”
Levin’s skepticism is echoed by Townhall’s John Hawkins, who called Fiorina “the Establishment candidate” in that cycle, and by conservative policy analyst Dean Clancy, who showcased a post Red State’s Erick Erickson wrote during the Senate race declaring, “the mask is off, and there’s a squishy moderate underneath.”
With no previous elected office, Fiorina has no voting record to evaluate. It’s no surprise that fans of DeVore, a state assemblyman from Irvine with sterling credentials as a retired National Guardsman and Reagan-era Pentagon appointee, feel they were beaten out by a Joanie-come-lately who loaned her own campaign $1 million and outspent him nearly three-to-one.
But on several of conservatives’ biggest issues — gay marriage, abortion, and gun rights — Fiorina took bold, outspoken stances that put her to the right of previous leading California Republicans such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson.
“I’m proudly pro-life,” Fiorina told the California Republican Assembly state convention. “Marriage is between a man and a woman. My husband owns lots of guns. I will defend the rights of the unborn and I will never turn my back on the values we hold so dear.”
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