Carly Fiorina’s disgust is written all over her face [View all]

[Miles Archer]

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/11/03/carly-fiorinas-disgust-is-written-all-over-her-face/

Though key issues may vary, a candidate’s signature facial expressions rarely do. In Carly Fiorina’s case, she dominates the field of 2016 Republican presidential contenders in one particular look: It signals disgust. With a lower-lip depressor movement, her lower lip pulls down and out, causing the lip to stretch wider and the chin to momentarily flatten.

This movement is one of the five principal ways to express disgust. The emotion is more commonly signaled by the upper lip curling or the nose wrinkling, in keeping with its actual meaning. Disgust is about rejection, about viscerally protecting oneself from what you perceive as “poisonous.” Fiorina uses it to reject the status quo.

Fiorina curled her upper lip during last week’s debate on CNBC, for example, as she discussed the need to “cut the bureaucracy” at Hewlett-Packard when she was its chief executive. The expression was evident in the first debate as well, when she analyzed President Barack Obama’s “false choices” in negotiating with Iran. She also wrinkled her nose. One strikingly on-message but off-emotion moment occurred during the CNBC debate: Fiorina’s words were positive about small businesses, yet her nose wrinkled as she said them.

The lower-lip depressor, however, is Fiorina’s signature expression of disgust — one often associated with bitterness. The bitter look came courtesy of a host of topics in the third Republican debate. It finished the rhetorical question of “Who’s going to get [tax reform] done?” and accompanied her comments about needing to hold chief executives criminally liable for malfeasance. It was most apparent as she stated that her GOP opponents all have “good plans.” Displaying happiness isn’t Fiorina’s forte. Reagan-esque optimism isn’t for her.