Update: Coverage of the second Republican debate. 
 
 Hand it to Carly Fiorina's superPAC. It figured out how to do something none of the other Republicans vying for the party's nomination could: Make Donald Trump fall flat on his face. 
 
 Without mentioning him by name, the Carly for America Committee released a web ad Monday responding to Trump's assertion that no one would want someone with Fiorina's face as president of the United States. The ad, called "Look at This Face," intersperses images of other women with Fiorina speaking at a Republican women's event. 
 
 "Ladies, look at this face and look at all of your faces, the face of leadership," Fiorina says. "This is the face of a 61-year-old woman. I am proud of every year and every wrinkle." 
 
 It's basically Fiorina's team shaming Trump as sexist, and it's the best comeback to a Trump insult yet. 
 
 Why is Carly Fiorina defending her face to Donald Trump? 
 
 It all started last week with a Rolling Stone feature on what it's like to be on the campaign trail with Trump: 
 
 When the anchor throws to Carly Fiorina for her reaction to Trump's momentum, Trump's expression sours in schoolboy disgust as the camera bores in on Fiorina. "Look at that face!" he cries. "Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!" The laughter grows halting and faint behind him. "I mean, she's a woman, and I'm not s'posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?" 
 
 Typically, a demeaning insult like that would create a backlash against the candidate who said it. But the old political rules don't always apply to Trump, and Republican candidates have had a hard time figuring out just where the line is and when he's crossed it. Jeb Bush and Ben Carson, for example, have struggled to respond to Trump's taunts about them having "low energy." 
 
 But it was clear that Fiorina might have an opening when Trump started backpedaling last week. He said he'd been talking about Fiorina's "persona" and not her face. 
 
 "Maybe, just maybe, I'm getting under his skin a little bit because I am climbing in the polls," Fiorina said last week. 
 
 By Monday, just a couple of days before the next Republican debate, her superPAC was ready to unload. And while her putative target was Democrats — "Ladies, note to Democrat Party: We are not a special interest group, we are the majority of the nation," Fiorina says in the ad — there's no doubt she was making Trump face up to his own commentary. 
 
 Correction: The ad was released by Fiorina's SuperPAC. 
 
 VIDEO: Donald Trump on the way he speaks to women 

 "Look at that face," Donald Trump said of Carly Fiorina, while talking to Rolling Stone's Paul Solotaroff. "Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?" As Trump spoke, his yes-men looked on; in his entourage, disagreement is intolerable, dissent akin to disloyalty. Even in private, Trump's dictum is clear. The most experienced political advisers, if consulted in confidence by Trump, would do well to recall what Archie Bunker said to Edith: "Stifle yourself." Otherwise, they might be told, "You're fired." 
 
 Trump would help himself, perhaps even get the nomination, if he retained his most intense critics among seasoned political strategists and incentivized candor. To paraphrase an old saying, a candidate who is his own campaign strategist has a fool for a client. But Trump, "rich, really rich" is "smart, really smart." 
 
 If Trump is undone, this will be it. (a) He has no one around like his former political consigliere Roger Stone who might tell him what he needs to hear and who could debrief him daily; (b) he does not recognize the need to be so challenged and believes, if it (he) isn't broken, don't fix it (him); and (c) he will not grow as a candidate to demonstrate a temperament not consumed by ego; and (d) unless Trump somehow changes, people at some point will have a revelation -- they will fear a president who keeps his own counsel on everything, takes action unilaterally, and appears imprudent and impulsive. 
 
 The nation does not want a chief executive to make monumental decisions involving foreign policy and national security out of ego and pride, anger or pique. All this discussion about temperament and humility is too bad, in a way. Because Trump raises serious and important issues, even if he does not offer series and important remedies. 
 
 Solotaroff reported the Fiorina episode last week in the magazine's profile of Trump. Normally, Trump would defend by offend. He would note Rolling Stone's money problems and staff cuts and say the magazine is desperate. He might next attack Solotaroff, a credible journalist twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, perhaps implying that Solotaroff is part of a conspiracy, maybe of hedge fund managers afraid of Trump's tax plan. Given the women's angle, one might even have expected Trump to pivot and bring up the politically correct Sabrina Erdely, who wrote the long and detailed Rolling Stone piece about the gang rape at the University of Virginia. The rape never occurred, the discredited article was retracted, but it did win an award from the authoritative Columbia Journalism Review as "The Worse Journalism of 2014." 
 
 Instead, Trump -- trying to save face -- and as the man who says what he means and means what he says, noted implausibly he was talking not about Fiorina's face, but her persona. Yet, many admire Fiorina who has shown persistence and competence in an uphill campaign. Her performance in the wannabee first debate was stellar, nonetheless she had to confront the CNN bureaucracy for her much-deserved placement in the main event Wednesday at the Reagan Library. Her appeal is summed up by what one high propensity voter said to me: "They ask her a question, and she answers it." Indeed, she does so directly, concisely, unambiguously. 
 
 Enter into this controversy Fiorina herself -- speaking before the ideal forum, the National Federation of Republican Women. "This is the face of a 61-year-old woman," she said to rousing applause in a clip aired repeatedly on the networks. "... I am proud of every year and every wrinkle." And in a separate interview, Fiorina showed class and grace, as she did not reply in-kind to Trump who, she said, apparently found her competitive. 
 
 All this was good for Fiorina. 
 
 Now, Fiorina is out with a new ad "Look at this face" which begins, "Ladies, look at this face... and look at all of your faces," and then shows faces of women -- young and old. Fiorina's voiceover continues -- "the face of leadership in our party... in our community" and moves toward "we are not a special interest group, we are the majority of the nation." 
 
 This widely heralded ad, actually created and funded by Fiorina's SuperPAC, Carly for America, is getting mountains of free play on the network, and the media treat it as an official Fiorina ad, part of the whole confusion between official committees and SuperPACs. And, with current trends reducing paid television ad expenditures and relying on viral Internet pickup, and the network news programs rerunning it or lifts from it, it gets plenty of notice. 
 
 Regardless of who sponsors it or how it gets out, this ad keeps the controversy alive. It appears to set up an anticipated Fiorina-Trump confrontation, almost, possibly, to eclipse a Carson-Trump exchange. Indeed, Trump is aiming for Carson, whom he perceives as more threatening; and Carson, if he plays his cards right, could emerge Wednesday the giant-slayer, or at least begin the process. 
 
 Some pundits say this Fiorina ad is clever, because it never mentions Trump but still gets at him. But it doesn't, really. 
 
 Just as explicit attacks on Trump by his opponents that he is "not really a conservative" have failed, so too will an implicit attack by one opponent, Fiorina, that he is against women, fail. The big elephant in the room is Trump's temperament. If he can grow as a candidate, learn about issues, and reassure voters that his ego is bounded and he is deliberative, he will survive and broaden his support; otherwise, he will eventually go down. This ad gets at none of that and doesn't really do much for Fiorina. 
 
 And while the Fiorina ad probably delights its creators, political groupies and reporters, it is "thou dost protest too much." Right now, Fiorina, who knows marketing, should realize her target is not the general election. It is the universe of likely Republican primary voters. And that group, including women, is not into playing the woman card. Republican primary voters, men and women, do not see women as victims. For her ad to say that women are not a special interest but a majority says, what? Is this a subtle dig to suggest that Democrats patronize women? 
 
 We know that Carly Fiorina is a woman. And it is obvious she is the only woman candidate on the Republican side. 
 
 One reason for Fiorina's strength is she is the anti-Hillary: Fiorina never has asked for anyone to support her because she is a woman. Until now. 
 
 This ad is a step back for Fiorina. 

 Women earn just 78 percent what men make in America. 
 
 Thanks in large part to actress Patricia Arquette’s Oscar speech on the matter, that gap is now likely to figure into the 2016 presidential campaign. 
 
 On Thursday, Carly Fiorina emerged victorious from a debate featuring slightly less prominent candidates, according to The Hill, thanks to a choice shot at Donald Trump and demonstrating a surprising command of foreign policy despite her main experience running Hewlett Packard. 
 
 Though she (nor any of the other candidates) was not asked about the gender-pay gap, as a woman and former CEO, it is almost certain to come up if she advances and ends up squaring off against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. 
 
 After all, they would be the two individuals in the nominee field who could bring the most authority to the topic. 
 
 Here is what we know so far about how Fiorina sees the issue. 
 
 In comments made in April in Iowa, she said the problem stemmed from businesses placing too much emphasis on seniority and not meritocracy. 
 
 “Anyone who wants to harness the full power of human potential, of both men and women, needs to focus on building a meritocracy,” she said at the Iowa Women’s Leadership Conference at the DoubleTree hotel according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette’s B.A. Morelli. 
 
 She continued: 
 
 If you focus on a pay for performance system — a true meritocracy where people are recognized, paid and promoted, not on how long they’ve been there, but what they produced — women will rise to the top — not because women are better than men, but because they have half the human potential. 
 
 Fiorina is right, in a sense, that age plays a huge role in the gender-pay gap: Numerous studies show the gap widens as employees get further into their career. 
 
 But Harvard professor Claudia Goldin, an expert on the problem of women’s pay, has written that this is not the result of a lack of emphasis on performance. 
 
 In fact, she wrote in her 2014 paper on the subject, “The gap is much lower than it had once been and the decline has been largely due to an increase in the productive human capital of women relative to men.” 
 
 Instead, Goldin says, women are paid less because they work different hours than men, for a variety of reasons, including childrearing and the average hours worked in industries that tend to have more men than women. One solution is to therefore make earnings less dependent on the cost of not working a consecutive set of hours, and more dependent on working a set of overall hours. 
 
 On her website, Hillary Clinton addresses this, calling for “workplace policies like paid leave and flexible scheduling that allow parents to take care of their obligations at home without sacrificing pay at work.” 
 
 Clinton also put forward some more specific proposal that address what other experts have said about what is causing the gap. Here’s how she put it in an interview with Glamour Magazine: 
 
 1. Pass the Paycheck Fairness Act: The legislation “gives women the legal tools we need to fight discrimination at work.” 2. Promote pay transparency: “You can’t stand up for equal pay if you don’t know whether you’re paid equally,” Clinton said. “You remember the Lilly Ledbetter case—she didn’t know for the longest [time] that she wasn’t being paid the same as her male coworkers doing the same jobs. Postings for new jobs or promotions should come with salary ranges. Large companies should report on how fairly, or not, they’re compensating workers, male or female.” 3. Raise wages for the lowest-paid jobs: These jobs are “disproportionately held by women, especially women of color,” Clinton said. “We need to make it easier for more women to enter higher paying fields like science and engineering and technology….In most states today, waitresses, bartenders, hairstylists, and others who rely on tips are paid even lower than minimum wage.” 
 
 If Fiorina indeed ends up on the ticket, and presuming Hillary wins the Democratic nomination, this is what you can expect on an issue they are more qualified than anyone to discuss. 

 On Monday, Carly Fiorina’s super PAC, “Carly for America” released a new political advertisement in advance of the GOP debate on Wednesday, that proves the decades-old formula: vague platitude + swelling music = Political Dynamite. 
 
 In the spot entitled “Look At This Face,” Fiorina invites a crowd to “Look at this face,” coyly referencing that time Donald Trump questioned whether anyone could vote for someone with Fiorina’s face. A rally speech is intercut with smiling women from all walks of life who look at the camera eyes that say “I don’t know why I am being filmed.” 
 
 
 
 She then gives a speech consisting exclusively of the words, “Leadership,” “Suffrage,” “Party,” “Women,” “Communities,” “Worship,” “Majority,” “Nation.” 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 “This is the face of a 61-year-old woman,” Fiorina concludes. “I am proud of every year and every wrinkle.” 
 
 To be honest, I got the chills because I am a machine that has been designed to like meaningless schmaltz. Also because I wrote this from inside an ice cube, but mostly the first thing. 
 
 Contact the author at joanna@jezebel.com.
– Donald Trump dissed Carly Fiorina in Rolling Stone with his now-famous "Look at that face!" comment, and a Fiorina super PAC is throwing it back in his face with a new ad capitalizing on his own words. Released yesterday by the Carly for America Committee, "Faces" kicks off with a Fiorina voice-over declaring, "Look at this face. And look at all of your faces" as images of smiling women and girls flash across the screen. Her words were picked up directly from a speech she made Friday to the National Federation of Republican Women, per CNN. She calls the Republican Party "the party of women's suffrage" and praises women as the "face of leadership in your community, in your businesses, in your places of work and worship," ending with "This is the face of a 61-year-old woman. I am proud of every year and every wrinkle." The ad is one of the buzziest of the campaign yet, though reaction has been mixed: Jonathan Allen writes for Vox that it's "the perfect comeback," noting that "it figured out how to do something none of the other Republicans vying for the party's nomination could: Make Donald Trump fall flat on his face." Huffington Post blogger Arnold Steinberg isn't much of a fan, calling the ad "a step back." He says Fiorina's target right now is Republican voters looking for an "anti-Hillary"—i.e., someone who won't play the "woman card." Joanna Rothkopf seems slightly more conflicted, writing for Jezebel that the ad follows a well-worn formula: "vague platitude + swelling music = Political Dynamite." But she admits: "To be honest, I got the chills because I am a machine that has been designed to like meaningless schmaltz." (Click to read about how Fiorina's thoughts on the gender pay gap compare to Hillary Clinton's.)