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Carly Fiorina's Closing Statement At The CNN GOP Debate Attacks Hillary Clinton & No One's Surprised

by Mara Flanagan

As Tuesday night's GOP debate came to an end, Carly Fiorina's closing statement did not shock viewers. Neither did it shed light on any aspects of her public persona or talk points that she has not established over the course of her campaign. The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard spoke to her extensive executive experience and decried the failures of current political establishments. She made it clear, however, that her real battle was not within her party: It was against Hillary Clinton.

I, too, remember September 11th. I remember immediately putting into place security procedures all throughout our company that did business in 170 countries where we thought corporate interests would be attacked next. To take our country back, to keep our nation safe, we have to begin by beating Hillary Clinton. We need to unify our party. We need to be better than our government, which 75 percent of the American people now think is corrupt and incompetent. They're right. We need to be better than our politics: Eighty percent think we have a professional political class, in both parties, that cares more about its power, position, and privilege than actually on getting anything done. We need to unify our party. We need a real Conservative in the White House, and we need to beat Hillary Clinton to take our country back and keep our nation safe. I can. I am. And together, if you join me, we will take our country back.

As for her overall debate performance, Twitter's response to the candidate was largely negative:

The Republican primary debates have been a series of highs and lows for Fiorina. In September, she technically polled too low to make the main CNN debate, but MSNBC reports the network gave Fiorina a spot on stage due to a technicality. And it worked in her favor, as CNN reported that Fiorina owned the September debate, polling at 15 percent directly afterward. She drew national attention for her response to Donald Trump's comments regarding her appearance, saying, "I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said."

But not everything has been a winning moment for Fiorina. In the same debate, she made controversial comments about Planned Parenthood and the videos released by the Center for Medical Progress. Fiorina described the footage during the CNN debate as watching, "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.'" Fact-checkers later discovered that her description of what's depicted in the edited videos was inaccurate.

Tuesday's debate was not the winning performance Fiorina and her supporters probably hoped for to revive her flagging poll numbers.

Images: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images