Talking to Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on Thursday about possibly being excluded from ABC’s GOP presidential debate on Saturday, MSNBC host Kate Snow touted a Washington Post hit piece accusing the businesswoman of “playing the gender card”: “...a conservative writer wrote that you're playing the gender card about this....Is it fair to say that you're playing the race – the gender card?”
In the Post, “conservative” columnist Jennifer Rubin went on a tirade against Fiorina: “She is free to carry on despite awful results, but she is not content merely to soldier on. She now insists that the debate rules be changed, not because the polls failed to pick up a surge...but because she is a woman.”
Rubin further sneered: “The voters have a right to see that the most viable candidates have sufficient time to make their case and interact with other viable candidates....as she remains in the race sinking further in the standings, she makes herself less attractive (politically speaking) as a Cabinet official or future candidate.”
Responding to Snow, Fiorina declared:
Let's just start with the facts. I'm a viable candidate and there's room for eight people on a stage. The truth is, I am a more viable candidate than several people on that stage. I have more cash on hand, I have a bigger team, I have a greater ground game. I'm a more viable candidate. By the way, I just happen to be a woman, sorry, I can't help that. I'm a woman....
I started this campaign 17 out of 16. The pollsters wouldn't ask my name. Less than 4% of voters had ever heard of my name. And now here we are and we have Perry, Walker, Jindal, Santorum, Huckabee, Graham, Pataki. All have dropped out. It’s a really long list. And I’m still here and I have a ground game in 12 states, leadership teams in 25 states, I have more cash on hand than many candidates. In other words, I have come further, from further behind, than any other candidate running.
At the top of the segment, Snow pointed out former GOP nominee Mitt Romney coming to Fiorina’s defense and hitting ABC: “We just saw a tweet come in from Mitt Romney, who says, ‘Hey ABC, put Carly Fiorina on the debate stage. She got more Iowa votes than John and Chris,’ Kasich and Christie, ‘Don't exclude only woman.’”
Here is a transcript of the February 4 exchange:
1:16 PM ET
(...)
KATE SNOW: I want to start by asking you about the debate on Saturday night. This is the next GOP debate. You've been talking about it a lot because ABC’s expected to announce the final line-up for the debate tonight and according to the current polls and their rules, you would not be on that debate stage. We just saw a tweet come in from Mitt Romney, who says, “Hey ABC, put Carly Fiorina on the debate stage. She got more Iowa votes than John and Chris,” Kasich and Christie, “Don't exclude only woman.” Why do you want to be on that debate stage on Saturday?
CARLY FIORINA: Well, obviously debate stages are important. They’re an opportunity to talk to voters, especially three days before a primary. But in this case, we – the media was using polls originally because there were so many candidates and polls were all they had. Well now, there aren't so many candidates. I’ve outlasted seven of them – governors and senators – and now we only have eight candidates.
And now we have much more than polls. First of all, we know the polls are deeply flawed, as we saw in Iowa, but now we have actual votes and delegate counts and results. And so, I'm tied with Jeb Bush for delegates and I beat Christie and Kasich, as well as Huckabee, who was polling way above me in Iowa, and a bunch of other folks. And I have a ground game in 12 states, and leadership teams in 25 states, and more cash on hand than several people on that stage. In other words, I'm a more viable candidate than a lot of the guys on that stage, so they need to put me on it.
SNOW: One of – this morning, a conservative writer wrote that you're playing the gender card about this because you’ve mentioned, “I'm the only woman” – you said the other day, “I should be on the stage, I’m the only woman.” Mitt Romney mentioned it in his tweet as well, your gender. Is it fair to say that you're playing the race – the gender card?
FIORINA: No, not at all. Let's just start with the facts. I'm a viable candidate and there's room for eight people on a stage. The truth is, I am a more viable candidate than several people on that stage. I have more cash on hand, I have a bigger team, I have a greater ground game. I'm a more viable candidate. By the way, I just happen to be a woman, sorry, I can't help that. I'm a woman.
SNOW: You mentioned this, you tied for seventh place in Iowa. If you look at it, you did better than Chris Christie, you got just as many delegates there as Jeb Bush and John Kasich.
FIORINA: That's right. And I got more votes than John kasich.
SNOW: Here in New Hampshire, though, I have to ask, you're at 3%, you’re at the bottom of the list in our daily tracking poll. Well, Rick Santorum is still in there, too. But how do you come back from that? How do you create enough momentum to be – you say you're viable – how do you get to the presidency?
FIORINA: Yeah, I think the polls, we're figuring out, are wrong. The polls were wrong in Iowa. Mike Huckabee was polling way above me. And yet, I beat him by a mile. Why are we putting so much faith in these polls?
But let me just give you context. I started this campaign 17 out of 16. The pollsters wouldn't ask my name. Less than 4% of voters had ever heard of my name. And now here we are and we have Perry, Walker, Jindal, Santorum, Huckabee, Graham, Pataki. All have dropped out.
SNOW: That’s a long list.
FIORINA: It’s a really long list. And I’m still here and I have a ground game in 12 states, leadership teams in 25 states, I have more cash on hand than many candidates. In other words, I have come further, from further behind, than any other candidate running.
(...)
