Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Showing poise in coping with mistakes is a large part of the game, too



Heh: Carly Fiorina answers Seth Meyers question about domain snafu by buying SethMeyers.org - HotAir

Carly Fiorina, who just jumped into the race for the presidency Monday, has spent the week coolly sitting for interviews and cleverly parrying jabs from reporters and critics. It is obvious that after losing her Senate race in 2010 to Sen. Barbara Boxer, Fiorina did some real hard work on improving her skills as a candidate, and it paid off. Nonetheless, the week was marred by a rather glaring mistake, especially for a tech-centric candidate like the former Hewlett-Packard CEO. Fiorina failed to register the domain carlyfiorina.org, and a critic promptly took it over and launched it as an attack site on her record. Cruz before her had experienced the same fate.

Although it’s always preferable that a candidate not make a preventable mistake in the first place, we’re all humans here, and showing poise in coping with mistakes is a large part of the game, too (and a skill one Hillary Clinton lacks entirely). On Seth Meyers’ late-night show Tuesday, Fiorina showed how a clever comeback and a bit of pop-culture savvy can come close to eclipsing the original gaffe.