Mitch Perry
All the heavyweights for the GOP presidential 2016 race were in Nashua, New Hampshire this weekend — Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.
While those six men are always mentioned when it comes to “serious” contenders, more that a dozen other men — and one woman — who say they are pondering entering the race also spoke at the First in the Nation Republican Leadership Summit, taking place on the main stage in the ballroom at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
This Coachella for Republican political enthusiasts was well-organized by the New Hampshire Republican Party, but they’re likely skilled at such things since their state has such an large influence on who becomes major political party candidates every four years. Floridians make a big deal about how much the general election presidential candidates visit Tampa and Orlando and other parts of the Sunshine State, but New Hampshire expects presidential candidates to basically come and do their laundry if asked. Talk about entitlement, it’s retail politics on steroids, and this weekend was the unofficial kick-off to the race.
Only two probable contenders, Ben Carson and Rick Santorum, failed to appear.
Carson did send Vernon Robinson to be his surrogate, and Team Ben had a coterie of young staffers handing out goodie bags that included a “Run, Ben, Run” 2016 wall calendar, stickers, a Ben Carson cozy, and a booklet titled, “Ben Carson, On the Issues in His Own Words.”
Robinson said Carson would make his official announcement in Detroit on May 4. Considering the effort being made to remind people he regretted not being in New Hampshire, you can bet he’s running.
Following him was Jane Homan, a Washington D.C. committeewoman, who gave the most factually detailed presentation of the weekend. Homan used statistics to show how poorly Republicans fare in cities in elections, noting how few Republicans these days are mayors or control city councils. Conceding that the GOP probably won’t win the biggest cities in presidential elections anytime soon, she insisted that cutting into local margins in swing states such as Ohio can change how those states vote in presidential elections. It was an important voice in calling on Republicans to consider those constituents, just as Paul has attempted to do.
It got a little loony after that, when Dennis Michael Lynch was given the requisite 30 minutes to present his agenda. A conservative filmmaker, Lynch apparently fancies himself a potential candidate, though other than generating a lot of interest when appearing on Fox News, it’s not evident what his appeal is. He blithely dismissed the idea that deporting 12 million undocumented people in America would be a hard thing to do, so, he’s got that going for himself.
Finally hitting the stage was a former elected official. Former New York Gov. George Pataki apparently is considering a run for higher office, though if there’s been a clamor for him anywhere, it’s been extremely under the radar (Individual posts on most of the major candidates’ speeches can be accessed via attached hyperlinks).
Pataki has been out of the public eye since leaving Albany in 2006, but just like California governors, New York governors will always be mentioned as possible candidates for national office. One thing about Pataki is he looks presidential: He’s white, tall, and looks good in a suit.
Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, always a barrel of laughs, followed Pataki. A neocon’s neocon, Bolton doesn’t appear to be seriously running, but wants to influence the debate.
Defense and foreign policy issues seemed to be what the New Hampshire Republicans care most about. Some candidates focused on domestic issues (noticeably Christie on reforming entitlements), but the crowd’s blood surged every time Barack Obama‘s foreign policy moves were mentioned, particularly regarding the negotiations with Iran about its nuclear program. Many cited failed leadership, the speakers generally saying any of those in New Hampshire could do a better job. Other than Peter King or Paul, Republicans reserved any fire on themselves. That made it rather redundant by the middle of Saturday afternoon.
The first major speaker on Friday was former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. He expressed worry about the state of the nation while being generally very enthusiastic, exactly the candidate he might have been in 2012 but wasn’t, possibly because he was recovering from back surgery. He was the classic Texas pol, a guy who jogs with a gun as he used to do. Perry tried to brighten the mood, saying help is on the way in 19 months. If America could survive Jimmy Carter, we can make it through two more years of Obama, he assured. Maybe.
Watching Christie recalled the criticisms from fellow Republicans after his speech in 2012 at the Republican National Convention, the one where he talked a lot about himself, and barely mentioned Mitt Romney. Christie likes talking about his style, the no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-it-is mantra that thrilled a lot of Republicans when he came on the scene in 2010.
Christie hasn’t officially announced, and there’s question whether Bush and Walker have taken a lot of his natural support and fundraising base. Overall, it wasn’t a bad performance, so it won’t be a surprise if he says he’s in it. Then again, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he doesn’t. A final report on BridgeGate is coming, which no doubt will have a major effect on his ultimate decision.
Bush had one of the more impressive half-hours, as much for his handling of some tough questions from the crowd. One questioned his so-called inevitability and on his ardor for Common Core, which seems to be loathed by a lot of Republicans in New Hampshire and not selling that well elsewhere in Republicanland. Bush fans have to hope that his passion about education reform can convert them.
Rubio closed out Friday night with the keynote dinner speech. He admitted that running for office means sacrificing things like being with his wife and kids on such nights. It wasn’t exactly a line to get the crowd out of their seats, though absolutely honest.
Rubio was the only speaker in Nashua I watched on computer, and not in the flesh. Most, if not all, print/Internet reporters worked out of a media room where there was no video presence to see the candidates. There was an audio feed, and many were likely watching the speeches on MSNBC.com, streaming live on their laptops.
However, after being credentialed Friday morning, I didn’t see the media room and walked straight into the ballroom. There was a riser in the back with television cameramen and radio reporters who were hooked up to an audio feed box, and a few had laptops open. So I sat a table to the far end of the room where nobody was sitting, staying there the whole weekend, booted out only for the dinner crowd to come in for Rubio’s speech.
Saturday began at 8 a.m., with famed political focus group guy Frank Luntz leading a focus group with the entire audience. Luntz asked which candidate would they like to help fix a flat tire. One woman picked Hillary Clinton because “I want to see if she could accomplish it.”
Luntz went for broad laughs as well. When asked who the audience thought had the highest IQ in the field, one man yelled out Christie’s name. When asked why, he said, “He’s got a great act.”
“He’s got a great ass?” Luntz replied. “What, are we in San Francisco?”
When he asked which candidate they would not mind being stuck in an elevator with for six hours, one woman said Rubio.
“He’s got I.Q. and E.Q,” she said, apparently referring to emotional intelligence. She went on to say of Florida’s junior U.S. senator that, “He’s America’s new favorite grandson. Every grandmother in America is going to fall in love with Marco Rubio.”
A woman sitting next to her agreed, mentioning Rubio’s personality, intellect and “great family story.”
“He is very smart,” she said, adding, “And to spend six hours in an elevator with him would be a delight.”
It then got a little rough.
Bob Ehrlich won an upset victory in 2002 in Maryland, when he defeated Kathleen Townsend Kennedy to become a rarity in Maryland: a Republican governor. Ehrlich is among the not-so-famous Republicans thinking about a run. He told the audience that he was trying to figure out whether there’s a place for a blue-collar Republican in the field.
“I think we need to be angry, but purposefully angry,” he told the crowd in somewhat menacing and unfriendly tones. “I’m here to remind people that that anger needs to be directed because we’ve lost five out of the last six presidential elections.
“We’ve proven that we are a regional party. We’ve proven we can we when we don’t have an agenda,” he said of the 2014 congressional election victories. “The American public was down on Barack Obama. But guess what? That formula doesn’t work well in presidential years. The country is a’ changing’. The culture’s a-changing.”
He went on to blast Democrats for exploiting class warfare, saying “the other side demonizes wealth.” He also unveiled invective against all Democrats, saying that they make things up and the American public, or so-called “low information voters,” are allowing Democrats to win major offices. “Their agenda is counter-cultural. It doesn’t celebrate success, it doesn’t celebrate entrepreneurialism,” he complained. “It was a jealousy campaign,” he said of Obama’s 2012 victory over Mitt Romney.
He then began yelling, saying that Republicans — not Democrats — have led the way on criminal justice reform issues.
That tone continued with an appearance by Betsy McCaughey, who shlepped a copy of the Affordable Care Act (all 1,200 pages) to the stage.
McCaughey is hailed in conservative circles for her opposition to “HillaryCare” back in the ’90s when she was lieutenant governor of New York. She has a grating speaking style, and virtually shrieked when discussing Clinton. “She couldn’t run a gas station!” she barked.
Then Paul hit the stage, clad in blue jeans, a white shirt and red tie. As has been said, Paul should balance his natural isolationist stance on foreign policy issues with the fact that the country — and certainly Republicans — seem to be more anxious about security issues than a year ago. A group like ISIS can change people’s thinking on such issues.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough then held a media panel discussion.
Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump’s appeared Saturday, but I didn’t see or hear much of Bobby Jindal‘s or Mike Huckabee‘s speeches, though I was in the room when they were spoke. Jindal cracked up the crowd with his jokes. I thought at the time: There’s no way this guy is going to be a serious contender.
Huckabee said he’ll formally announce his plans in May, like Carson. With all the other energy in the room, it’s unlikly Huckabee will take off like in 2008. But it’s early, so no predictions here.
That was around the time of the press scrum with Donald Trump in the media room, fun because it was performance art: Let’s all look Trump in the eyes and treat him like a guy who’s going to keep coming back to New Hampshire.
Deadlines took attention away from Jindal or Huckabee, thus no individual stories on them. And frankly, like a Sunday at Coachella, one’s energy had been mostly expended at this point. Plus, the energy was dying out in the room.
Another speaker who didn’t get a story was Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the most interesting man in GOP politics now that Paul has realized he’d have to compromise a lot to be taken seriously as a nominee.
Taking nothing for granted, Kasich discussed life before politics, then his work on the House Budget Committee in the ’90s, when he helped the country get a balanced budget through “for the first time since the moon landing.”
He told the audience to hold off on committing to any candidates until he makes up his mind. He’s one of several Republican governors who fought to expand Medicaid, saying it’s the right thing to do.
In his comments, he distinguished himself from fellow Republicans.
“You know, I’m a fighter,” Kasich said. “I could fight with the best of ’em. I could come in here and spend this whole speech blasting Barack Obama, and all this other stuff, but that’s not what I wanted to do.”
Kasich was followed by a red meat-filled speech by firebrand U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
By then it was 4 p.m. in Nashua, and with a 7 p.m. flight back to Tampa from Logan International in Boston, it was my cue to exit. So I’ve yet to see and hear Scott Walker in the flesh.
I think I’ll survive.
The 2016 race is just getting started, with time for people like Kasich to still get in and do something interesting.
