Carly Fiorina appeared on Meet the Press and gave one of her more impressive performances, in contrast with the rudeness and perpetual interruptions of the accompanying Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Fiorina, on Republican criticism of Obama’s handling of the gulf oil spill:
Well, I think there’s much in that that’s fair. And there is a difference, obviously, between governing and leading, and running for office or campaigning. Look, BP has huge accountability here, and they need to be held to account. But the government has accountability as well. When we hear that there are 13 separate federal government agencies running around in confusion down there, when we hear that there is equipment that could be used to help clean up the Gulf sitting in warehouses, when we hear that there is assistance that is being pleaded for by local officials and that assistance is not coming, all of this leads to the impression that this is not yet an effort where the president is exerting as much control as is necessary to get this thing fixed. Of course BP has responsibility, but we also need to understand, where were the government regulators? Where was MMS, despite the fact that the leader of MMS had been brought in by Ken Salazar in a move to reform the agency, according to him?
That was followed by this exchange:
MR. GREGORY: Well, and…
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: David–right.
MR. GREGORY: Well, hold on a minute, that’s–wait, because I wanted to go back to Carly Fiorina. I mean, respond to that point, Carly, for one. But for two, because there’s legitimacy to that, what, what is good government, going forward, in a crisis like this?
MS. FIORINA: Good government needs to be efficient and effective. I’m not talking about small or big, but I know from the real world that when things get too big and too complicated and two expensive, as our government is now, they don’t perform well. These are vast, unaccountable bureaucracies. They don’t coordinate with one another, and, as a result, they’re not effective. And may I just say, it was Ken Salazar who put in place the secretary or the head of MMS who just recently resigned and who came from the industry. So I think…
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, he didn’t.
MS. FIORINA: …this is a question of the blame game to say this is all about Republicans…
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: He came from the House.
MS. FIORINA: …saying small government. This is about efficient,effective government…
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Birnbaum was from the House.
MS. FIORINA: …and efficient and effective response. And what the American people are seeing is an ineffective response.
MR. GREGORY: Did, did that head of MMS come from–did she work on the hill or did she come from industry?
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: The head of MMS was from the House of Representatives. Liz Birnbaum came from the U.S. House of Representatives. She was an employee for many years, and then she moved from the House of Representatives to MMS. So I don’t know what she’s talking about. But this is a big, expensive disaster.
MS. FIORINA: And she was forced to resign because of her failure to reform the department as she promised to.
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: In the year–excuse me, excuse me–in the year that she was, that, that she was there, there definitely was not enough reform, but she was cleaning up, in the process of cleaning up from years of a totally hands-off regulatory policy by the Bush administration…
MS. FIORINA: Then why did she resign?
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: …in which they had a scandal-ridden regulatory agency.
MR. GREGORY: OK, but, Congresswoman, the reality is that if the president made a priority of reforming MMS, he also made the decision to curtail that reform, if it was incomplete, to move forward on more oil drilling, to…
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Which I don’t…
MR. GREGORY: …to achieve political consensus on climate change legislation. So it’s a question of the choices the president made.
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Look, as–well, in a–arguably in a year, you weren’t going to be able to clean up that regulatory mess that, that essentially was–left, left industry in charge of itself, and that’s why we ended up with this BP disaster.
MR. GREGORY: All right.
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: But as someone, unlike Ms. Fiorina, as someone who represents a Gulf state, who is totally opposed to expanding offshore oil drilling, unlike Ms. Fiorina, who even in the face of this BP disaster, would continue to allow offshore oil drilling as a solution, it is absolutely…
MR. GREGORY: All right.
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: …irresponsible to do that. We need to focus…
MS. FIORINA: If I may–if I may just say…
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, no, no. You keep interrupting me.
MS. FIORINA: If I may just say, actually…
REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Excuse me, excuse me.
MS. FIORINA: …you–if I may just say that…
MR. GREGORY: Hold, hold on, hold on one second. Congressman***(as spoken)***let’s let Carly Fiorina respond. Go ahead.
MS. FIORINA: If I might just say, I am not defending the performance of MMS over many years. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is absolutely correct that MMS has failed in its duties under both Republican and Democratic presidents. That’s a fact. It is also true that the reason President Obama reversed his decision on shallow offshore drilling is because the people in the Gulf course–Coast were pleading for jobs and we need the energy.
And on it went in this vein. Recall that Barbara Boxer drew attention to herself both by tangling with an African-American business leader and a general, revealing herself as both rude and out-of-touch. If Fiorina can repeat this MTP performance — showing that her liberal opponent is both obnoxious and uniformed — she will do very well in her race. Voters already disgusted by the political elite may welcome a Washington outsider who has a businesslike and civil approach to issues.
