McCain Surrogate Carly Fiorina Meets With Disaffected HIllary Clinton Supporters

The McCain campaign dispatched its top female surrogate Tuesday to meet with about 25 disaffected supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton in Westchester, N.Y.

Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co. and a top adviser to Republican Sen. John McCain, met with the former Clinton backers at a private home for more than an hour and a half. Fiorina said in an interview that over glasses of iced tea and finger food, she fielded questions from Democratic women she described as "intensely uncomfortable with the notion of a President Obama.''

Both McCain and his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama have both been courting the 17 million or so people who voted for the New York senator during the primary season.

The Westchester meeting came at the behest of former Clinton supporters, some of whom have said - adamantly - that they won't support Obama. Polls show Obama winning the majority of support from women voters while about a quarter of ex-Clinton supporters are leaning toward McCain. The meeting wasn't stocked with typical voters, however. These were prominent activists and fund-raisers, including several known as "Hillraisers,'' who raised more than $100,000 for Clinton during the primary season. "I didn't ask how many of them were Hillraisers but certainly a number of them were,'' Fiorina said.

Nor, Fiorina said, did she ask the women whether Clinton knew they had arranged the meeting with her. Clinton has endorsed Obama and urged her supporters to help defeat McCain.

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