Posted on 05/25/2015 10:20:57 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
OKLAHOMA CITY — The annual Southern Republican Leadership Conference provided a glimpse into the state of the Republican base and the presidential field.
The conference revealed a Republican base that is (1) broadly happy with the crowded and conservative field, (2) still smitten with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and (3) unimpressed and uninterested in Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Senate chaos over the Patriot Act kept the four senators who are running from making it, dampening the mood a bit.
The candidates running a second time — Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Mike Huckabee — do not excite the conservative base.
Also, it was evident from the speakers and the attendees that defense and national security have returned to the forefront of the Republican mind.
Straw Poll: The straw poll results mostly reflected Scott Walker's popularity, and the apprehension the Republican base has for Jeb Bush and Chris Christie, the perceived establishment moderates in the field.
1) Dr. Ben Carson won the straw poll handily, thanks to his having the biggest organized effort. His campaign bought a booth and bought 100 tickets, to allow supporters to attend for free. Many of these supporters came in from out of state. All told, Carson won about 240 votes.
2) The biggest winner may have been Wisconsin Gov. Walker, who finished a close second, with about 200 votes. He had no organized effort to win the straw poll, but he still won the most votes among Oklahomans in the crowd. His Friday afternoon speech was spot-on and well delivered. His strong showing reflects that the good will Walker garnered through his fights in Madison, Wis., sill buoy him, even after other conservative stars have entered the race.
3) Sen. Ted Cruz was a big reason many conservatives attended the event — he was slated to be the keynote speaker, and is something of a superstar, but he had to miss the confab for Senate votes. Cruz's campaign ran a small but clever operation to try and win the straw poll. A third-place finish for a no-show isn't bad.
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THE CANDIDATES
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Walker: Walker continues to impress the GOP crowd, especially those who haven't seen him before.
1) His strong second-place finish in the straw poll was impressive because he was the only candidate to post double digits without an organized straw poll effort.
2) Pacing the stage, jacketless, in a blue shirt, sleeves rolled up, Walker's speaking style was easy and comfortable. Some attendees found him too low-key. Most saw his style as confident and assuring.
3) What recommends Walker most to Republican voters is his successful battles with powerful labor unions, the media, and the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Walker made these battles — including his recall election victory — the focus of his talk.
4) Walker was able to tick off a long list of legislative accomplishments, touching on all the major conservative policy priorities: cutting spending, cutting taxes, bringing the bureaucracy to heel, defunding Planned Parenthood, expanding gun rights, passing right to work, requiring photo ID for voters and so on.
5) Walker cast his political and policy wins as populist victories over powerful insiders. He described his fight against the government unions as "taking power out of the hands the big-government special interests" and putting it in the hands of ordinary people.
6) Walker closed with a pointed critique of his rivals. He said many Washington politicians are good at picking fights, but they don't win — a clear reference to Cruz's failed Obamacare shutdown, and Marco Rubio and Paul's lack of a record. Alternatively, many Republicans, Walker said, are good at winning races, but they never fight for important, tough things — presumably referring to Christie and Bush.
7) Conference attendees praised Walker's "courage," and ability to "solve problems." They said he reminded them of Reagan.
8) The word "front-runner" can carry many meanings, but it probably fits Walker at the moment.
Cruz: Cruz was a no-show because of Senate votes, but he still made an impression from afar.
1) Cruz was supposed to be the dinner keynote address. Instead he gave a 25-minute video-taped speech. The message was standard Cruz, and the delivery was constrained by the format. Still he elicited applause from the dinner crowd.
2) Cruz's father, pastor Rafael Cruz, spoke twice — once at the dinner and once Saturday, near the end of the proceedings. The elder Cruz pleased the crowd.
3) Cruz's 16.6 percent in the straw poll was enough for third place, and it was three times the vote total of the fourth-place finisher, Chris Christie. This was partly the fruit of his campaign's small but clever campaign to win the straw poll.
4) Along with his decent positives, Cruz has some negatives with the base — more than the other conservatives. Some Republicans dislike his libertarian streak (these people dislike Rand Paul more), while others see him as a grandstander.
5) Cruz was probably the most common target (unnamed) of criticism from other candidates. Many candidates made pointed reference to grandstanding, empty speechifying, ineffective unbendingness and inexperience in office.
Carson: Carson has high positives and low negatives among the conservative base, but many see him more as a running mate or a cabinet official.
1) Carson's straw poll victory was not proof that he is the favorite of the southern Republican crowd. It was instead the fruit of a deliberate, paid effort by his super PAC to win the straw poll. Still, he earned at least 150 more votes than his supporters bought in tickets — an impressive showing that would have put him in third place.
2) The assembled Republicans all had good things to say about him. At least three attendees independently called Dr. Carson "a healer," suggesting he could "heal" the country.
3) Conservative enthusiasm for Carson is partly grounded in the belief that Obama has divided Americans along racial lines, and that Carson would bridge that divide.
4) Carson is the only Republican in the field who has never before run for office, and that is generally seen as a positive among a base that has grown increasingly anti-establishment and anti-Washington.
5) Carson's speaking style, while endearing, is not compelling. He's sleepy, down to earth, charming and funny. But he's not forceful in the way Walker is, nor does he seem as purposeful as Carly Fiorina. Although he's not a career politician, his message isn't significantly different from that of the other candidates.
6) Attendees often mentioned Carson as a potential running-mate for a more experienced nominee.
Christie: Greeted with skepticism as a possible squish from the Northeast, Christie won over — or at least entertained — the conservative crowd. His was probably the best speech of the weekend.
1) Christie speaks in an easy, relaxed tone that conveys confidence. He walked the stage, with no script or notes at hand, but still delivered a well-crafted speech, peppered with personal stories both funny and moving.
2) His two main themes are his record, and criticism of Barack Obama.
3) Christie was perhaps the most consistent candidate in knocking Obama (as opposed to merely Hillary Clinton). This is likely an attempt to undo the harm he did to himself among the GOP base by hugging President Obama after tropical storm Sandy. When he pledged to undo Obama's executive orders, the crowd roared.
4) Christie touted his record of "fiscal conservatism," in New Jersey, cutting spending and regulation and axing thousands of state jobs. He didn't play up his cooperation with Democrats, but instead portrayed himself as fighting the special interests in his state.
5) Electability — specifically, his ability to beat Hillary — was a powerful point Christie made in his talk. Republicans need a nominee who "knows how to fight and knows how to win."
6) In his catalog of policy prescriptions — not a central focus of the talk — Christie won some decent applause. He hit some standard GOP issues such as entitlement reform and flatter taxes.
7) Christie's forceful critique of the civil libertarian wing of the party divided the crowd more than any other issue. When he attacked (without naming) Rand Paul for holding up the Patriot Act reauthorization, deploring the "very dangerous debate," half the crowd rose to their feet in applause, while the other half sat on their hands.
8) Attendees received Christie's speech well, applauding often, and in interviews saying they were pleasantly surprised.
9) Still many conservatives rule out Christie, as a RINO, often mentioning his post-Sandy embrace of Obama. Christie's hard line in favor of NSA spying also turns off a subset of the conservative crowd.
10) Christie has serious upside potential. There will probably be a Christie boom or boomlet at some point in the primary season.
Perry: Rick Perry's speech was excellent, one of the two best of the weekend. Still, few conservatives see him as their top choice.
1) Perry's style was more formal than the others. He stood behind the podium, in his crisp dark suit, and read clearly with gravity from a script — but it was a good script.
2) Perry played up his record in Texas, as a series of policy victories, as an economic success story, and as having provided the experience a president will need. He said the president must be "someone who's been tested."
3) Perry specifically contrasted his executive experience with the inexperience of his rivals who sit in the U.S. Senate, particularly Paul and Cruz: "Leadership's not a speech on the Senate floor — it's a record of action." Along similar lines, Perry said: "A lot of candidates will say the right thing. We need a candidate that will do the right thing."
4) He ticked off his accomplishments on job growth, budgets, border enforcement and education, eliciting a roar from the crowd with his criticism of Common Core.
5) Very few attendees volunteered Perry's name as one of their favorite candidates, even after his powerful speech. His fifth-place finish — behind Christie, and in a state neighboring his own — suggests the Perry's failed 2012 run puts him at a disadvantage as 2016 starts.
Jindal: Bobby Jindal delivered a culture-war polemic that seemed to touch the rawest nerves of the conservative crowd.
1) Jindal — whether he was talking about the Islamic State, religious liberty, school, his life story or immigration — spoke in terms of a culture war.
2) Jindal seemed the most in touch with this conservative, mostly older and white, Oklahoma crowd. He warned that Obama wants to "redefine our country" and works to "divide us." This sort of talk of cultural identity and divisiveness is ubiquitous among the conservative crowd. Jindal was the only one to clearly tap into this apprehension.
3) Jindal's style was down-home story-telling, filled with legitimately funny jokes — not just politician jokes, but actual comedian material. On a dreary, rainy Friday afternoon he woke up a crowd that had been dulled by Jeb Bush, and a bit dispirited by the recently announced absence of superstars Rubio and Cruz.
4) Most of Jindal's speech was his own American dream story. This quietly highlighted his ethnic minority status in a way that appealed to the crowd.
Fiorina: Fiorina has little support but the biggest upside potential of any candidate in the field.
1) Fiorina barely registers in the minds of conservatives when you ask them to name their favorite candidate or candidates. Speaking last at the conference — after the straw poll — didn't help her in OKC.
2) Fiorina defines herself as the anti-Hillary. She leads and closes her speech with barbed attacks on the Democratic front-runner. She elicited one of the weekend's loudest cheers with a direct and undeniable headshot to Clinton: "She. Can. Not. Be. Trusted."
3) Her style is fairly flat, but poised. She comes across as possibly the smartest of the Republican candidates — and that's in a field with some high IQs.
4) She is most insistent and direct in going after crony capitalism, an issue that has the power to motivate the base, and which will be potent against Clinton.
5) Fiorina makes a decent case that her business experience would be useful to the presidency, but her defense of her rocky tenure at HP ("when you lead, you make enemies,") may not be convincing.
Santorum: Santorum barely registered in the straw poll. He'll have a hard climb to convince GOP voters that he's the guy for 2016.
1) Santorum's speech was at times compelling, but often awkward and stiff.
2) He lays on the populism better than the others. His populist pitch to the conservative crowd is part of an electability pitch: unless Republicans get over their Romney 47-percentism, and speak to middle America and the working class if they want to win.
3) Santorum barely registered in the straw poll, even though he won this state's primary in 2012.
Bush: Bush was the loser of the weekend — except maybe when it came to fundraising from the oil and gas barons in OKC.
1) Bush's speech was the worst of the bunch. The delivery was flat and uninspired. He didn't seem to want to be there, and it looked like he barely wanted to be running for president.
2) He has a strong governor record to tout, and the crowd applauded as he recalled his battles with trial lawyers, teachers' unions, and the like.
3) Bush leans hard on the electability issue. "We have to get outside of our comfort zones" in order to win the presidency, he says.
4) I asked dozens of attendees if there were any candidates they would rule out, and Bush's name was easily the most mentioned — for a variety of reasons. Some cited his immigration stance. Others just pointed to his last name. The dislike for Jeb showed up in the straw poll, where he finished in sixth place with less than five percent of the vote.
5) One state party official attended the small gatherings where candidates met with big local donors. She said Bush's gathering had the most impressive crop of billionaires and millionaires, and that they received his message warmly.
The Field: Other candidates didn't register very much at the conference.
1) Rubio was often mentioned when attendees were asked to name their favorite candidates, but Senate votes kept him from attending.
2) Paul also was a no-show, but he hadn't signed up to attend in the first place.
3) Huckabee, who surely would need to win Southern states to even have a chance in the primary, oddly was absent.
Issues: There is no clear priority issue among the candidates nor among the attendees.
1) Education — specifically opposition to Common Core standards — was a common theme from the candidates, and it always revved up the crowd.
2) Along similar lines, religious liberty was big for candidates and attendees alike. As with Common Core, the attacks on religious liberty leave conservatives feeling powerless and disenfranchised. In both cases, big business sides with big government against cultural conservatives.
3) Populism in general was a theme with the candidates, with Fiorina taking on crony capitalism; Walker, Christie and Bush talking about battling the special interests; and Santorum calling for outreach to the working class.
4) Foreign policy was up there with economics as a top concern of the gathered conservatives. It was one of the favorite issues for the candidates. Consistently, support for Israel invoked loud applause.
5) Many attendees — in a crowd that was overwhelmingly old, white, and Southern — fretted about America "losing its identity," and "coming apart," due to "divisiveness."
The thing about being the front-runner, is that YOU become the target and the one upon whom all the ricochet shots go bouncing off from.
And the ricochet, while not nearly as powerful as the direct shot, can still do damage and mischief, if only because the collateral target is wholly unpredictable.
Despite the best efforts of the Walkerite author, the article actually demonstrates that Ted Cruz was the real winner of the conference. He garnered the third most votes, even though he could not attend the conference due to the Senate Patriot Act business!
Walker was not able to beat Dr. Carson, even though he traveled all the way from Wisconsin to try to do so.
“Dr. Ben Carson won the straw poll handily, thanks to his having the biggest organized effort. His campaign bought a booth and bought 100 tickets”
Times are too seriously to still rely on this corn-fed BS as a way to pick candidates or gauge interest.
The fact that Caraon came in 1st just shows you that the people there are not serious and likely just voted for whomever kiss their ass the hardest or trucked in the most free-loaders.
Let’s wait until we get to the debates to see what Walker’s really got. I want to see him on stage with Cruz and pay close attention to that interaction. My inclinations are that Cruz will overshadow him.
The biggest difference between Walker and Cruz for me comes down to 2 things: Trust and Excitement. I can trust both but my excitement to want to do more extends much more to Cruz than Walker. I could vote for Walker pretty easily but I think it would be more fun and exciting to support Ted Cruz. Cruz has the “it” factor.
Can’t take anything from Walker when the guy’s run in a Blue State on conservative principles and survived 3 times while beating down the Union thugs. I’d expect someone that accomplishes that to garner a lot of excitement and to be excitable. But for some reason, I don’t know, he comes off a little boring to me.
As for Carson, he’s a good guy but will fade once his positions outside healthcare become more well known, like on guns. He can easily be the next Surgeon General if we win.
Fiorina’s been surprising. It would take a 2012 rollercoastal of up and downs for the other candidates in the polls for her to surge and I’m not sure if that’s going to happen this time around. I might have underestimated her, but I still think she’s a longshot.
Cruz did well to finish 3rd since he wasn’t there in person. He’s been building a solid campaign on the ground and in the grassroots. Once the debates kick in we’ll see how far the rest can take him.
I don’t think anybody can really be declared a “front-runner”. Everything is too subjective at this point.
PING
It means there is no consensus favorite for the GOP nomination yet. It’s too early to judge things on a straw poll and it also means neither Walker or Cruz can be considered the frontrunner at this time. You’re drawing way too much of a conclusion nearly eighteen months out from the election.
Other than that, I generally agree with your comments.
I don't want an "it" factor, I want the meat and potatoes. Another thing to factor in is how much room each candidate has to grow. As "unknown" shrinks which column does that number go into? And who has high negatives -- can that be reversed?
What’s a Walkerite?
I agree, dowcaet. It’s much too early to declare a frontrunner at this time.
You misjudge the Carson movement completely. In a Georgia poll, a “scientific” poll of voters, not convention goers, Carson and Huckabee tied for 1st with over 20%...to the surprise of the Georgia Conservative professional consultant who ran the poll.
Huckabee was no surprise as he won GA last time he ran here. He has name recognition and legacy.
Georgia Republicans like that Carson is a non-politician and does not parse his words like a politician. Georgia Republicans are very much aware that Georgia could easily turn purple, and then red. They see reaching out to Carson (and Rubio who finished a close 3rd) as pragmatic to win.
It does not hurt Carson that Herman Cain is currently the most popular and loved Republican in Georgia. He has the #1 radio program. It was Herman’s good words for Perdue that got Perdue elected US Senator when both the establishment and the alleged anti-establishment conservatives were supporting the Kingston, the epitome of what is wrong with the party, in the eyes of the voters. The Senate race was actually a vote for Herman Cain and Perdue was just his proxy.
Really wish Jeb would take a hint and save his family and this nation from his stupid ambition
Let these guys start debating in the summer and I think you will see the field start to narrow and the top candidates will start to solidify their support. Freaking out over a straw poll eighteen months out of the election is useless and besides does anyone really think Ben Carson will be our next president? Relax everyone. Don’t get worked up this early in the process.
“Walkerite” means associated with Walker, a supporter of Walker, or a Walker appointee or ally.
Also used with Reagan (Reaganite), Clinton (Clintonite), and Alinsky (Alinskyite).
Carson won, but Walker actually won.....and there is a Cruz guy on this thread saying Cruz won..........in another state.......
:-)
Btw, a Walkerite is sort of like a Walker bot.
Me, I'm a Cruzite bot.........
Welcome to the race.
What do you call that for Cruz?
“Bot” as in robot?
A patriot.
I see, so Walkerite is an insult.
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