And Fiorina certainly didn't believe it in 2010, when she was the GOP nominee in the race for U.S. Senate in California -- a race she lost by 10 percentage points to incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer.
So what did Fiorina learn from that bruising race?
"There were a lot of rookie mistakes in 2010," said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and a former GOP political operative. "Now, there's political maturity."
Whalen points, in particular, to the way in which Fiorina pounded on her fellow Republican rivals for the party's nomination in 2009 and 2010. That included a television ad that has now become one of the most-talked-about moments in California political history: An ad that used a demonic sheep to accuse Tom Campbell, her most prominent GOP rival, of being a "fiscal conservative in name only."
"I'd be absolutely stunned if she runs a 'killer sheep' ad against Jeb Bush," said Whalen, in discussing Fiorina's quest to stand out in comparison to the front-runners for the 2016 Republican nomination.
Instead, Fiorina used her announcement to present more of her biographical background, from her fight against breast cancer during the Senate campaign to her secretary-to-CEO rise through the ranks of the business world. The candidate returned later in the morning broadcast to a much softer Q&A focused on her new book, "Rising to the Challenge."
"Republicans are suckers for Horatio Alger stories," said Whalen.
Others think that one thing Fiorina never got enough credit for in her 2010 bid in California: her charisma.
"She proved to be a very good retail politician in her Senate run," said Rob Stutzman, a longtime GOP strategist who in 2010 ran the campaign of gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. "She is unique to the field with candidates that are, otherwise, a lot alike."
And whereas that bitter GOP intraparty fight in 2010 allowed the Democrat Boxer to essentially go untouched, Fiorina this time seems to have decided it's better -- and more news-headline attractive -- to look past the primaries a bit and take aim at Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
"She clearly is not trustworthy," said Fiorina in her ABC interview on Monday morning.
Fiorina has made similar comments in recent weeks. And that kind of jab, combined with the fact that the GOP field seems awfully crowded, may be why political watchers wonder whether Fiorina's best chance next year is as the vice presidential nominee who can more freely launch attacks on the Democratic standard bearer.
GOP strategist Stutzman says that Fiorina could prove to have some gas in the tank as the first primaries and caucuses get underway.
"I think she could outperform expectations in Iowa and New Hampshire," he said. "She has a chance to grab third in Iowa and get a ticket to move on."
Still, her HP experience can cut two ways. And GOP observer Whalen says that some of that record, which helped sink Fiorina's bid for the Senate, could still prove to be heavy ballast in her presidential voyage.
Boxer and her fellow Democrats attacked Fiorina for HP's big worker layoffs and use of workers overseas -- a criticism used in Boxer's TV ads and one that fact checkers found generally rooted in reality.
In a political climate like the one in 2015 and 2016, those issues of wealth and work may again come up when GOP voters are asked to consider Fiorina.
"It could be a liability" to her campaign, said Whalen.
