RNC Victory rallies support for McCain with local speech

Conventional wisdom says that a faltering economy favors the out-of-power party, meaning, in this presidential election year, the Democrats.

Carly Fiorina doesn't buy it. The former Hewlett-Packard CEO and economic adviser to John McCain now heads up RNC Victory, a group designed to generate support for the Republican nominee.

"Let's remember that conventional wisdom has been consistently wrong in this election," said Fiorina, who stopped in Chicago to deliver a speech Wednesday. "Conventional wisdom said John McCain was dead for the nomination. That Democrats would have a nominee early. Conventional wisdom doesn't work, because people are going to make up their own minds."

Fiorina dismissed the idea the eventual Democratic nominee will score points with voters by citing McCain's comment to the Wall Street Journal editorial board a few months ago that he doesn't understand economics very well.

"As a businesswoman who has known John McCain since 2000," Fiorina said, "I think that statement reflects his generally humble nature and his generally unscripted nature."

McCain, she said, has more economic leadership experience than either Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama by virtue of his years of U.S. Senate service.

More importantly, Fiorina said, his economic policies will have broader appeal than the eventual Democratic nominee's.

"American people are going through a tough time," she said. "Food prices are going up; fuel prices are going up; consumer and small business confidence is falling. What do you want to do in that environment? Raise taxes?"

Asked if there's not broad popular support for raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans while cutting taxes for the middle class, as Democrats propose, Fiorina said that approach harms small businesses, who must file tax returns on individual rate schedules. Increased taxes on small business, she warned, would slow the country's "engine of economic growth."