Carly Fiorina: Top 5 Reasons She’s Taken Over The Headlines

Carly Fiorina has gone from political unknown to the solid number two in the GOP Primary polls. Following the second GOP debate, which pundits almost universally agreed that Fiorina won in a landslide, she jumped from the back of the pack to just behind unlikely front-runner Donald Trump. CNN reports that Carly Fiorina gained 12 percent in the polls in the period between the first GOP debate and just following the second. The most recent polls put her at 15 percent, while Trump fell from 32 percent to 24 percent during the same timeframe.

Her skyrocketing poll numbers aren’t the only reason Carly Fiorina is suddenly captivating the public’s attention. She’s had a lot of press recently, and for a variety of reasons. Let’s check out the top five Fiorina headlines of the last week.

5. The Planned Parenthood Comments

Carly Fiorina got a lot of support and a lot of criticism for her controversial comments about Planned Parenthood during the last debate. She accused the embattled woman’s health organization of dismembering still-alive aborted fetuses for their brains and claimed she’s seen undercover video to substantiate her allegations.

“A fully-formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says, ‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.'”

Pro-life advocacy groups and conservative political organizations applauded Carly Fiorina’s words. Her comments come during a time where Planned Parenthood has taken a lot of heat for undercover videos purportedly showing discussions about the pricing of fetal body parts. Congress has recently taken up measures to strip the organization of federal funding, a step Carly Fiorina supports.

Despite the emotional fervor behind the statements made by Fiorina at the second debate, many credible critics have come out to defend Planned Parenthood, calling into question Carly Fiorina’s version of events. The Hill reports that during a Sunday interview with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, Fiorina was once again questioned about the validity of her words. Todd called the video she described was “at best is a reenactment.”

4. Pelted with Condoms

Carly Fiorina was also recently pelted with condoms by Planned Parenthood supporters outside a University of Iowa football game on Saturday. The protesters yelled and chanted at the GOP presidential hopeful Fiorina, claiming that they were haranguing her because she’d been “telling lies.”

The protest put Fiorina back in the headlines, and she recounted the incident in her Meet the Press interview.

Planned Parenthood Supporters Disrupt Fiorina at Event, Throw Condoms http://t.co/7FfkvoAYzA pic.twitter.com/gn2X8YCsWP

— Mediaite (@Mediaite) September 27, 2015

3. She Supports Waterboarding

In a controversial new interview with Yahoo News, Carly Fiorina came out vocally in support of the interrogation techniques used by the Bush/Cheney administration during the early days of the “War on Terror.” CNN is reporting that the Republican candidate made her support of the Bush/Cheney administration’s methods clear during the interview, in which she was questioned about Hewlett-Packard’s relationship with the National Security Agency while she was at the helm of the tech company.

“I also believe that waterboarding was used when there was no other way to get information that was necessary.”

In addition to supporting the use of interrogation techniques many have come to refer to as “torture,” Carly Fiorina also stated that she felt it was her “duty” as CEO of HP to support the NSA’s government surveillance program. The program has been heavily scrutinized as “domestic spying” in the years since the “War on Terror” began.

Donald Trump is no stranger to making controversial remarks. Recently, his Republican opponents have gotten the worst of it, with his comments about Carly Fiorina and her face making headlines leading up to the second debate. Trump took a lot of flack for his controversial words, too.

“Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!”

Carly Fiorina decided to take the high-road, despite Trump’s decision to insult the looks of his sole female competition. (He later backtracked, insisting that he was referring to her persona, not her physical appearance, reports New York Magazine.) Carly retained grace in her response; despite the blatant insult, she took the high road and came out on top.

“I’m not going to spend a single cycle wondering what Donald Trump means.”

1. The Stage Collapse

The biggest Carly Fiorina headline of the weekend had to have been the “stage collapse.” While it wasn’t really a collapsing stage as much as a falling curtain, it did take the speakers attendees of a Fiorina event off guard.

The highly-publicized mishap took place in Texas during an engagement honoring female entrepreneurs. The audience was made up largely by the same demographic being honored, and the women in attendance quickly handled the situation, moving the felled curtains out of the way so the event could go on. Fortunately, neither attendees nor Carly Fiorina were injured in the collapse.

[Image Courtesy: Scott Olson/Getty Images]