Carly Fiorina's Camp is Trying to Not Show the Sweat on Her Brow

She's sweating it?

There's no sweating up on the big stage!

Actually, she's just hoping to get up on that stage in the first place.

From Hadas Gold, at Politico, "Carly Fiorina’s play for varsity debate":

Carly Fiorina is in an all-out sprint to keep the momentum going at the polls in hopes of making it into CNN’s varsity debate next month, with recent numbers showing she’s gripping onto that stage by her fingertips.

Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who has never held political office, got a boost on Tuesday as a CNN/ORC poll put her at 5 percent support, bumping Chris Christie out of the top 10.

CNN is taking the average of surveys released by 13 major polling operations between mid-July and Sept. 10 to determine the top 10 participants for the main event, while the remaining candidates who score at least 1 percent across their three best polls will participate in an earlier debate.

Pollsters say Fiorina is on track to make it to the big show on Sept. 16, as long as she is able to consistently score higher numbers in more polls.

Fiorina’s camp is trying to not show the sweat on Fiorina’s brow, even as she hustles. They know that one of her biggest liabilities is a lack of name recognition. So even as headlines have sprouted this week, condemning her executive record as far less than sterling, it still keeps Fiorina’s name out there. And after she delivered a commanding performance at the junior varsity Fox News debate earlier this month, Fiorina’s popping up everywhere, from the Iowa State Fair with her folksy plaid shirt and pork chop flipping, to a tour of Nevada and New Hampshire, for a breakneck schedule of town halls, meet-and-greets, and an education summit.

“We’re going to keep meeting with lots of voters, and answering every question,” said Sarah Isgur Flores, deputy campaign manager. “She wanted to introduce herself to voters,” said Flores on the debate response and good polls. “That was the goal. It’s accomplished.”

Getting to the main stage and delivering a repeat solid performance would be a further boost for Fiorina, showing that she deserves to be among the heavy-hitters. It would also be a test to see if she could break through the noise of Donald Trump, the spotlight hog of the first debate who prevented other candidates from getting their memorable moments.

And ICYMI, at BNI, "It’s taken two months, but the MSM is finally talking about the problem of presidential candidate Carly Fiorina being an apologist for Islam."

Actually, she gave excellent answers on defeating Islamic State in recent interviews. I think we need to hear her round it out on what Islam really is.