Lines of communication

SPARTANBURG, S.C.—On a cool, fall morning in Spartanburg, S.C., GOP presidential contender Carly Fiorina huddled in a small, yellow room with a dozen reporters and the youngest American she’s encountered on the campaign trail.

Riddick Dayne Thomas is due in February.

The infant’s mother, Lacey Thomas, cheerfully lay on an exam table at the Carolina Pregnancy Center (CPC), as a doctor moved an ultrasound probe across her bare belly and projected a live image of her unborn baby boy.

(Thomas, a CPC client, agreed to help demonstrate the center’s technology during Fiorina’s September visit.)

Physician Mary Haddad asked if she wanted to hear the baby’s heartbeat. With the press of a button, the packed room resonated with the sound of a loud whooshing and an insistent, “THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD.”

Fiorina held Thomas’ elbow and studied the flickering screen. “Wow, that shot of the spine is amazing,” she said to the young mother. “It’s good that people can see what 17 weeks looks like.”

For most unborn children, 17 weeks doesn’t look like this.

Indeed, Fiorina’s campaign visit came less than a week after the former Hewlett-Packard CEO excoriated abortion behemoth Planned Parenthood during the second GOP presidential debate.

Fiorina seethed over videos showing Planned Parenthood workers haggling with biotech companies over prices for aborted children, part of a series of videos released by the pro-life Center for Medical Progress (CMP). She dared President Barack Obama and Democratic contender Hillary Clinton to watch the videos:

“Watch 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. This is about the character of our nation, and if we will not stand up … shame on us.”

It was an electrifying moment in a debate performance that propelled Fiorina into third place in GOP polls. In a tie for third: Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who offered sharp foreign policy predictions about Russian military involvement in Syria that came true less than two weeks later.

If Fiorina and Rubio emerged as communicators-in-chief, many wanted to know more about the CEO who’s never held public office and the senator in his first term in Congress.

Both candidates launched their national political aspirations in 2010, with very different results. Five years later, they meet on the world’s largest political stage to face off in a contest with the highest stakes of all.

Who are they? Could they lead a country? And can they stand the heat long enough to find out?

FOR FIORINA, the heat has been fast and furious.

A day after the GOP debates, Planned Parenthood cried foul, saying the video Fiorina described didn’t exist.

CMP founder David Daleiden clarified: The video clip Fiorina mentioned of the baby kicking in a dish was provided by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. That group says the video came from an abortion, though it hasn’t said whether it took place at Planned Parenthood. Daleiden says he used the clip from the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform to show the kind of infants dismembered in an abortion.

If the video sequence was confusing, Fiorina’s response wasn’t: She refused to retract her outrage. “Planned Parenthood doesn’t deny they are delivering babies alive and harvesting their organs,” she said. “They don’t deny they are butchering babies. They just don’t want you to know about it.”

Indeed, on Oct. 6, CMP released a new video showing a Planned Parenthood abortionist from Texas describing how she tears apart an aborted baby’s “lower extremities” to get at the infant’s torso.

The abortionist said her center “goes up to 24 weeks,” and chuckled as she lamented she hasn’t been able to extract a whole brain from an aborted child: “This will give me something to strive for.”

For Fiorina, being a vociferous pro-life advocate doesn’t seem like something she always strived to do.

She’s most well known for her work as CEO of technology giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) from 1999 to 2005. That stint ended with the company firing Fiorina, and the episode may prove the fiercest source of heat in her presidential bid.

Critics point out Fiorina cut 30,000 jobs during her tenure and note the company’s stock value dropped by 55 percent. Fiorina and her defenders say she led the company during the worst technology recession in two decades and saved the jobs of 86,000 employees.

The jury seems split: Some former employees and board members say she was a better saleswoman than executive, while others say she saved a company that would have gone under without her leadership. Since Fiorina pins her ability to lead a country to her ability to lead a massive company, the debate over her HP legacy may be just beginning.

When Fiorina announced her bid for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Barbara Boxer in California in 2010, it wasn’t entirely surprising. Fiorina had advised Sen. John McCain’s Republican presidential bid in 2008.

But her conservatism was striking to some. Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List, a group that supports pro-life women candidates, first met Fiorina during her Senate primary run.

Dannenfelser didn’t know much about Fiorina and says others in California seemed skeptical about her pro-life convictions. But Dannenfelser left persuaded. “I was not prepared for the power of her argument,” she said. “I really believe it was our best interview of that entire cycle.”

When Fiorina talks about her pro-life views, she usually tells the story of learning that doctors encouraged her mother-in-law to abort Frank, the baby boy Fiorina would one day marry. (The couple has been married for over 30 years and has two grandchildren.) She also says her inability to conceive children punctuated the value of life.

When Fiorina talks about faith, she usually repeats a story about attending her mother’s Sunday school class as a child. The candidate grew up Episcopalian. Her husband is Catholic. A campaign spokeswoman said she attends a Methodist church when she’s home.

Fiorina does credit faith in Christ with getting her through a horrendous ordeal in 2009: She lost her stepdaughter to drug addiction, and she survived a battle with breast cancer. A year later, Fiorina appeared on the Senate campaign trail with hair still short from chemo treatments.

The 2010 campaign came at the height of tea party fervor, as conservative activists demanded smaller government and lower taxes. In the California primary, tea party supporters backed Fiorina’s Republican opponent. Some noted her defense of McCain when he supported the $700 billion TARP bailout in the 2008 recession.

Other conservatives supported Fiorina, including Sen. Tom Coburn, former Sen. Rick Santorum, and tea party darling Sarah Palin. Even in California, a state with a moderate pull, Fiorina pushed conservative buttons.

“I’m proudly pro-life,” she 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.”

Fiorina won the primary, but lost the general election by nearly a million votes.

By 2012, she was advising Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential bid, and likely plotting a 2016 comeback of her own.

These days on the campaign trail, Fiorina still seems like the brisk CEO. She tightly controls her message, writing all her own remarks, according to her campaign. Her advisers include a mix of political operatives and leaders of businesses and other private organizations.

During a recent meeting with nine honors students at Converse College in Spartanburg, Fiorina entered the room, firmly shook each hand, and repeated students’ names as they introduced themselves: “Hello, Olivia.”

She explained how she approaches critical decisions: lists of pros, cons, benefits, risks, and then a gut check about the worst possible outcome.

After she answered questions, she directed an impromptu photo shoot when students seemed unsure what to do: “Okay, first we’ll do the group, and then individuals. Everybody line up.”

A few moments later, she addressed a town hall meeting in a nearby auditorium, offering responses in clear, clipped language. If I’m president, she says, I’ll assemble a team to cut excessive government regulations and go through “Everything. On. The. Books.” She talks about simplifying a tax code that is “73,000. Pages. Long.”

When an audience member challenges her HP tenure, Fiorina says she will run on her record: “All. Day. Long.”

WHEN IT COMES TO SEN. MARCO RUBIO, there’s a much longer political record to run on.

The Florida native started on the ground floor of politics, winning a seat as a West Miami commissioner after a pavement-pounding, door-knocking campaign that impressed local activists. The same kind of hustle delivered Rubio a Florida House seat in 2000 at the age of 29.

By 2006, fellow legislators tapped Rubio as the youngest House speaker in Florida state history, and the first Cuban-American to win the leadership position.

After a series of community forums across the state, Rubio published a book called 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida’s Future. Other conservatives produced similar works in their states, and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich called it a “genius” idea.

Dozens of the ideas in the book became state law, including a provision requiring school districts to create “career academies,” where students could attend high school while also training for a vocation. Rubio presses a similar idea in his presidential campaign.

But Speaker Rubio perhaps became best known for his “tax swap” proposal to reduce soaring property taxes on homeowners. The plan would have eliminated the property tax on primary homes while increasing the sales tax rate by 2.5 percent.

Some conservatives, including many who became tea party activists, hailed the idea. It ultimately failed, with state senators, including some conservative Republicans, saying the plan would raise taxes on less wealthy populations.

But Rubio’s profile grew, and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform called him “the most pro-taxpayer legislative leader in the country.” Support also came from another notable corner: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Rubio’s one-time mentor and now Republican opponent, said the idea would have jump-started the economy.

By 2009, Rubio mounted a bid for U.S. Senate, challenging then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist. The GOP establishment backed the moderate Crist, while tea party activists backed Rubio. Crist eventually abandoned the Republican Party and ran as an independent. Rubio overcame a 35-point deficit and $4 million fundraising gap to win the election.

Tea party activists were jubilant, but said they wanted to see their newly minted senator deliver in Congress.

By 2013, the honeymoon was over. Rubio joined a bipartisan group of senators known as the “Gang of 8” to craft comprehensive immigration reform. The legislation included an eventual path to citizenship for immigrants already in the country illegally.

The Senate passed the bill, but by the time it came before the House for a vote, Rubio said he opposed it, saying it was more realistic to pass immigration reform through a series of individual bills.

In Florida and elsewhere, tea party activists and some conservatives remain split over Rubio’s migration on immigration.

During his presidential campaign, Rubio still talks about immigration reform, but says he favors beginning with a bill that would strengthen border security and ramp up the e-verify system to catch undocumented workers.

The next step: Modernize the immigration system and make it “less family-based, more merit-based.” A final step would be a bill to allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country if they pass a strict set of conditions and pay a fine. After a lengthy time period, they could apply for citizenship.

Despite the complicated history, Rubio doesn’t brush off the topic, and his advisers, a mix of aides who have worked on his campaigns and staff for years, will likely help him hone the message.

At a recent town hall meeting in Charlotte, N.C., the senator responded to the crowd’s applause by saying “Muchas gracias” to a group of Latino supporters who addressed him in Spanish.

It was a notable difference from other GOP events: More Hispanic voters mixed into this crowd. Josefina Triebwassee, a native of Venezuela, said she supports Rubio because of his stand on national security and the economy.

She also thinks he’ll enforce restrictions on illegal immigration and talks about her own lengthy and expensive process to becoming an American citizen. “We’re all for immigration,” she says, “but done in the proper way.”

Rubio strikes a similar note in his campaign speeches, speaking movingly about his own family’s migration from Cuba to the United States, a country where the “not-rich and not-famous and not-powerful can succeed. It’s unique among the nations.”

On other issues, Rubio connects well with many conservatives: He’s staunchly pro-life and calls what’s happening at Planned Parenthood and in the CMP videos “atrocious, barbaric, and grotesque.”

He talks about simplifying the tax code to a postcard-size set of questions. And he’s offered a sharp analysis of foreign policy and national defense that has impressed many conservatives: During the second GOP debates, Rubio warned that Russia would soon be flying combat missions over Syria. Less than two weeks later, Russia began military flights in the region.

Rubio and Fiorina do share a position that could prove a hitch for some social conservatives: Though both support traditional marriage, and say they support religious liberty, neither supports a constitutional amendment to turn back the Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage.

Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage says that’s like a pro-life proponent not supporting a federal amendment that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Brown is also critical of Fiorina’s support for civil unions: “That’s part of what got us in this mess in the first place.”

John Stemberger of the Florida Family Policy Council has known Rubio for years and says he thinks the senator is making a mistake by not supporting a constitutional amendment, even if such a process is a long shot.

But he still thinks Rubio could win over evangelicals with his commitment to traditional marriage and his ability to speak about it in a way that connects with young people in a confused culture.

Stemberger, who is not endorsing a candidate, says that kind of communication is key to a longer game strategy and thinks Rubio “might be one of the most gifted political communicators in modern politics.”

FOR RUBIO, mixing with evangelicals comes naturally, despite an eclectic spiritual background.

He’s a Catholic who briefly embraced Mormonism as a child before returning to the Catholic Church. He’s also influenced by evangelical pastors and thinkers and has attended both Catholic Mass and Saturday services at the evangelical Christ Fellowship in Miami.

In his book An American Son, Rubio writes about how he “craved, literally” the Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion, but also hungered for consistent biblical teaching: “I wondered why there couldn’t be a church that offered both a powerful, contemporary gospel message and the actual body and blood of Jesus.”

Rubio says he came to see what he believes as the Catholic faith’s teaching on the importance of a relationship with God, but he still maintains close connections with evangelicals.

When Rubio announced his presidential bid, he invited California evangelist Greg Laurie to offer the invocation. Rubio said he knew the campaign would be difficult, but quoted Joshua 1:9, which he said comforts him: “Be strong and courageous. Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”