February 10, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina has announced that she is ending her presidential campaign.
Fiorina bows out of the race after finishing seventh in last night's New Hampshire primary behind New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is also likely to exit the Republican primaries today.
“I've said throughout this campaign that I will not sit down and be quiet,” Fiorina said in a statement e-mailed to the media. “I'm not going to start now. While I suspend my candidacy today, I will continue to travel this country and fight for those Americans who refuse to settle for the way things are and a status quo that no longer works for them.”
She appealed especially to young women to reject demands that they vote for someone merely because she shares their gender.
“To young girls and women across the country, I say: do not let others define you. Do not listen to anyone who says you have to vote a certain way or for a certain candidate because you're a woman” – a reference to former Secretary of State Madeline Albright's statement last Saturday that “there's a special place in Hell for women who don't help each other.”
Mrs. Clinton lost female voters in New Hampshire by 11 points to Senator Bernie Sanders.
“That is not feminism,” Fiorina said. “Feminism doesn't shut down conversations or threaten women. It is not about ideology. It is not a weapon to wield against your political opponent. A feminist is a woman who lives the life she chooses and uses all her God-given gifts.”
“And always remember,” she told young women, “that a leader is not born, but made. Choose leadership.”
Fiorina made history as a groundbreaking female CEO of a Fortune 500 company before running for U.S. Senate in 2010 against Barbara Boxer. Boxer won the heavily Democratic state.
Fiorina entered this year's Republican Party presidential primaries as a longshot, favored by many who believed that another female could best debate Hillary Clinton. She gained steam after impressive performances in presidential debates, lobbying her way onto the main debate stage and staring down Donald Trump in a prime time stand-off.
During one such debate last September, she referred to the undercover videos of Planned Parenthood, daring Barack Obama and Clinton to watch them. Her remarks, which accurately summarized the videos' contents but misquoted a technician, led to a backlash from the abortion industry and spurred more than a dozen Planned Parenthood protesters to crash a campaign event at the University of Iowa, throwing wrapped condoms at Fiorina.
After the Harris County, Texas, grand jury indicted the videos' creators, some abortion activists had called for Fiorina to be indicted. That demand “tells you everything you need to know about the extreme position of the Democrats on life. And how scared they are of a candidate like Carly Fiorina who exposes their lies,” Anna Epstein, Carly Fiorina's press secretary, told LifeSiteNews exclusively.
Fiorina delivered the keynote speech to this year's March for Life, where she said Clinton stood outside the mainstream in believing that “a baby a month – a month – from being born is only as good as the parts that can be sold from it.”
As a candidate, she supported exceptions for abortion in the cases of rape and incest, and strongly supported homosexual “rights.”
After placing seventh in the Iowa caucus – ahead of John Kasich – she again came in seventh in New Hampshire in a field of eight, winning four percent of the vote and beating only Dr. Ben Carson.
In her statement, Fiorina called on the Republican Party to “end crony capitalism,” reform “inept government bureaucracy,” and enact “conservative principles that lift people up and recognize all Americans have the right to fulfill their God-given potential.”
Her statement reads in full:
This campaign was always about citizenship — taking back our country from a political class that only serves the big, the powerful, the wealthy, and the well connected. Election after election, the same empty promises are made and the same poll-tested stump speeches are given, but nothing changes. I've said throughout this campaign that I will not sit down and be quiet. I'm not going to start now. While I suspend my candidacy today, I will continue to travel this country and fight for those Americans who refuse to settle for the way things are and a status quo that no longer works for them.
Our Republican Party must fight alongside these Americans as well. We must end crony capitalism by fighting the policies that allow it to flourish. We must fix our festering problems by holding our bloated, inept government bureaucracy accountable. Republicans must stand for conservative principles that lift people up and recognize all Americans have the right to fulfill their God-given potential.
To young girls and women across the country, I say: do not let others define you. Do not listen to anyone who says you have to vote a certain way or for a certain candidate because you're a woman. That is not feminism. Feminism doesn't shut down conversations or threaten women. It is not about ideology. It is not a weapon to wield against your political opponent. A feminist is a woman who lives the life she chooses and uses all her God-given gifts. And always remember that a leader is not born, but made. Choose leadership.
As I have said to the many wonderful Americans I have met throughout this campaign, a leader is a servant whose highest calling is to unlock potential in others. I will continue to serve in order to restore citizen government to this great nation so that together we may fulfill our potential.
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