On Wednesday I sat down for a brief chat with Carly Fiorina, the famous former head of Hewlett Packard who is now crisscrossing the country on behalf of John McCain in her new position at the RNC. Here are some excerpts from the interview:

On fundraising: "We're completely confident that we're going to have the money we need to run this campaign the way we want to run it."

On Obama possibly opting out of public financing: "That would be unfortunate, I think - not for John McCain - I think it's unfortunate for Obama because it is another example of failing to do what he said he was going to do with great fanfare at the time. We can compete and win against Obama."

On whether the economy is a handicap for McCain: "John McCain has to have both empathy and answers, which I believe he does. But I think the source of your question is, you know, the conventional wisdom always is 'well, if the economy is bad the party in power loses.' One of the things that impresses me about this election is the conventional wisdom has been consistently wrong on virtually everything about this election - including the fact that John McCain was dead over the summer."

On free trade: "John McCain believes in free trade, and he believes in free trade because the data is clear: free trade creates jobs in this country. Free trade helps us grow our economy. And I think the protectionist rhetoric that is being thrown around by the Democratic candidates is rhetoric that is so extreme now that they're going to have trouble walking away from it."

On Iraq: "Whatever people think about how we got here, what we do now is a matter of grave importance. And Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama think that what we should do is depart even though we're finally starting to see success. John McCain believes that we need to build on the success that we've seen in the last year or so and win in Iraq - not because he wants to stay there for 100 years but in fact because he believes a stable country is in our interests.

"In my heart, I think it takes a soldier to bring us home with victory and honor. I think it takes a soldier, someone who really understands war - how terrible it is, the cost of war, the price of war - I think it takes someone who really understands it, to finish it."

You can listen to the entire interview here: