Carly Fiorina Helps Lead GOP Senate 2012 Takeover Bid As NRSC Vice Chair
WASHINGTON -- When Carly Fiorina first considered running for a Senate seat in California in 2009, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) offered her a piece of advice.
"He said to me, 'Carly, you're going to have to learn to shamelessly ask for money,'" Fiorina recalled in an interview with The Huffington Post. "And I still remember that first phone call I made." She smiled, but didn't elaborate. "Suffice to say when you're running for office, you learn to ask for money pretty darn quick. It probably helped that I'm a business person, too, and I'm direct."
Today, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard brings her experience as a candidate and a CEO to the Republican effort to win back the Senate majority, as vice chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). The NRSC's chairman, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), pointed out that Fiorina is the first person to hold the position who is not a sitting senator. In the coming year, he told HuffPost, her top priority will be "to expand our base of support, especially in the business community."
For Fiorina and the GOP, the stakes could hardly be higher. Republicans need to win only four seats to regain control of the Senate, and with 23 Democrats either up for re-election or retiring next year, political analysts acknowledge that odds favor the GOP.
"Republicans are really well-positioned this cycle, and Democrats are playing defense all over the map," said Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist. "More importantly, though, it's not a Rubik's cube, where there's only one way to solve it -- there are a lot of roads [Republicans] could take to get to a majority," he said.
Democrats, for their part are relying on a combination of tactics and luck to maintain their narrow majority, and Shripal Shah, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), told HuffPost the party is "strongly positioned to retain [the majority] come November." Among the Democrats' advantages, Shah listed "bloody Republican primaries, great [Democratic] recruits in key states, a strong fundraising advantage, incumbents and the DSCC."
But Senate races are notoriously expensive for both parties, and there are 33 of them in 2012 -- one third of the Upper Chamber. For Republicans, this is where Fiorina factors in.
"I never imagined myself at the NRSC," she said, "but John [Cornyn] came to visit me in California last spring, and he said, 'we really need you out there.'"
A month later, Cornyn visited Fiorina again, this time with a detailed proposal for her role at the NRSC. "I read it over and I thought, ok, I'm in," she said.
"Carly was a fantastic candidate last year," Cornyn told HuffPost. "She's so well-respected and has such a high profile ... I knew she would be a great asset [to the GOP]."
Not surprisingly, Democrats view Fiorina a little differently. Asked how her experience might play out in the 2012 Senate race, the DSCC's Shah referenced her tenure at Hewlett Packard and said, "Carly Fiorina got rich laying off American workers and outsourcing jobs." "Considering her record, it's not surprising that Republicans made her a poster child for their agenda."
But love her or loathe her, it appears Fiorina is in Washington to stay. This fall, she and her husband, retired AT&T executive Frank Fiorina, bought a $6.1 million brick house overlooking the Potomac in Lorton, Va., about an hour's drive from Washington.
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First Posted: 12/17/11 10:24 AM ET Updated: 12/17/11 11:27 AM ET