What You Need To Understand - And Expect - About The Rise Of Carly Fiorina

by Herman Cain: Familiar patterns.

Perhaps we can't call Carly Fiorina the "front-runner" for the Republican nomination, but we can certainly recognize that she's gained a great deal of attention and recognition through her strong debate performances and a series of excellent work in media interviews. One of the hardest things to do when you're running for president is to get the public's attention - as Rick Perry and Scott Walker discovered - and Fiorina has clearly arrived at a moment when she's got just about everyone's attention.

That's great news for her, but once you arrive at this point - as I did four years ago - it's easy to predict what will come next. She should not only be prepared for a level of scrutiny unlike anything she's experienced in her life, but also a series of questions that may or may not be truly relevant to her ability to do the job.

Consider the nature of the questions she will get on foreign affairs and national security. Fiorina has done a very good job of studying up on these issues, and that has allowed her to answer a lot of questions with great specificity. Even so, she will still get attacked for not having military experience and for not having insider knowledge about foreign leaders and overall matters of diplomacy.

But the ability to win the media's games of Trivial Pursuit on these matters is not the measure of the type of president she would be. (And this is true for Donald Trump as well.) What really matters is her leadership ability, and her understanding of how to gather information and make good decisions with it.

No candidate has as much information as the current president. They are not getting the daily national security briefings. They do not have the entire national security apparatus working for them. They can and should surround themselves with experienced advisors who have an understanding of such matters, but that's not the same thing as being on the inside as commander in chief. I know the frustration of being a candidate and sitting down for an interview where you know that at any time the interviewer may ask you to name the foreign minister of some random country. And if you don't get it right, that's going to be the biggest headline that comes from the interview, as they're sure this proves you lack the knowledge to be president.

Barack Obama has all that information right at his fingertips. How much good is that doing him? He still does a poor job as president because he doesn't know how to make good decisions with it. The measure of Carly Fiorina is not how much facts she already has in her head, but what she's demonstrated about her instincts, her thinking and her executive leadership ability. Once she has access to all the information presidents have access to, what will she do with it? The impression she's giving so far is encouraging.

With respect to her statements on immigration, as well as the growing issue of what to do with Syrian refugees, her main instinct appears to stem from a concern about simply opening up the doors. That's a healthy instinct. Hopefully as she develops her policy positions, that instinct will continue to guide her positions.

One thing she can be sure of is that the attacks on her will intensify as she attracts more of the spotlight. That's an inevitable part of the process, and while it's somewhat useful in that it demonstrates how she'd handle it as president, it's also true that many of the attacks will be based on complete nonsense. That said, Fiorina seems to be very good at dealing with nonsense and calling it out for what it is.

I have every reason to think she'll continue to be force in this race over the long haul - and a positive force at that.
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Herman Cain is a conservative radio host of CainTV, a 2012 GOP presidential primary candidate with over 40 years of experience in the private sector as an analyst for Coca-Cola, an executive at Pillsbury, a regional Vice President for Burger King, and CEO of Godfather's Pizza. Cain served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and a supervisory mathematician for the Dept. of the Navy.

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