WASHINGTON (TIP): Eleven Republican candidates vying for the party nomination on the road to the White House battered each other in a three-hour debate on Sept 15 night at the end of which, the sole woman in mix, former Hewlett Packard executive Carly Fiorina, shone with her poise and intelligence at the expense of frontrunner Donald Trump. The backdrop of their clash was Trump’s crude remark in a Rolling Stone interview about Fiorina’s looks (“Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?”), and he paid for that with a public dressing down, despite trying to reel it back, saying “I think she’s got a beautiful face and I think she’s a beautiful woman.”

“I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Trump said,” Fiorina responded curtly , as the two leading candidates eviscerated each other on their business record -Trump saying she was a disaster as HP CEO, and Fiorina calling out Trump’s multiple bankruptcies. Trump was also on the ropes after he was cornered for his remarks on Jeb Bush’s Hispanic wife, which suggested that her being Mexican could cause Bush to be soft on Mexico.