10 Themes to watch in 2016 race

POLITICS: CAMPAIGNS

Conservative confab highlights 10 themes to watch in 2016 race

BY BYRON YORK | JUNE 29, 2015

 

DENVER — The Western Conservative Summit, held over the weekend in Colorado, drew three of the top five candidates in the 2016 Republican presidential race — Scott Walker, Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee — plus Carly Fiorina, who has emerged as the most talked-about newcomer in the campaign, and two 2012 veterans, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry.

Taking place in a key swing state, attracting a large crowd of social conservatives and beginning on the day the Supreme Court issued its landmark gay marriage decision, the speeches and the hallway chatter at the Summit pointed to several themes that could shape the 2016 race in coming weeks and months. Among them:

1.) Ben Carson is moving up. The retired neurosurgeon won the Summit's straw poll with 26 percent of the vote. While that is a decidedly unscientific result, it comes as Carson is making a post-announcement climb in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, from eighth place in the race in May to fourth place today. Carson's unorthodox campaigning is hard for some political insiders to comprehend, but there's no doubt he appeals to conservatives who are sick of more polished politicians.

2.) Carly Fiorina is moving up, too. The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard finished second in the straw poll, with 22 percent of the vote, but probably won the buzz contest. A lot of people in the audience had never heard Fiorina speak before, and she made a good first impression. Fiorina is in some ways the opposite of Carson, delivering a crisp, concise, bullet-point presentation that covers more bases in a single stump speech than any other candidate in the race. It's going over very well.

3.) Scott Walker is running a straight-ahead, no frills, meat-and-potatoes campaign. The Wisconsin governor, who finished third in the straw poll, has honed a very basic sales pitch, focusing on growth, reform and safety (his word for national security). He sticks closely to the things he has accomplished in Wisconsin and promises voters he can do the same thing in Washington.

4.) Gay marriage is really about the Supreme Court. Even though it was the story of the hour, no candidate dwelled at great length on marriage. Neither Walker nor Carson even mentioned it in their prepared remarks. The one thing all agreed on was that the next Republican in the White House has to avoid the mistakes of previous GOP presidents and find some way to identify true constitutional originalists to appoint to the Court. Look for future discussions to focus more on that question than on the morality of gay marriage itself.

5.) Rick Santorum is back to square one. The former senator won the 2012 Iowa caucuses and 10 other states by applying more shoe leather than any of his GOP rivals. But four years later, Santorum, while still well-regarded by the crowd — they appreciate what he has done for conservative causes — is fighting for attention in a race that features a lot of newcomers. In Denver, Santorum won just 2 percent of the votes in the straw poll.

6.) GOP voters are still struggling with the head-heart dilemma. More than anything, they want to win in 2016. They fall in love with new faces, like Carson and Fiorina, but worry that they should vote for someone like Walker who they believe will have a better chance to win. They're constantly trying to balance those two impulses: the candidate they like best versus the one they think is most likely to win in November 2016.

7.) Conservatives know the economy is still an overwhelming voter concern, but they feel national security issues more deeply. When asked to rank issues by importance, Republicans rate national security much higher than Democrats and Independents. At the Summit, candidates talked jobs and the budget, but the strongest feelings seemed reserved for the fight against radical Islamic terrorism.

8.) No candidate will ever get anywhere by saying even a single nice word about Common Core. Ever.

9.) Rafael Cruz is the most effective surrogate of the 2016 campaign. Ted Cruz's father spoke on his son's behalf and won the crowd over; it was easy to see where the Texas senator got his oratorical skills. The Cruz campaign basically has two equally effective candidates; no other campaign has that.

10.) Nobody has really decided. Of course some voters have their favorites, but most concede that their allegiances are pretty soft and could change with events. And for every voter who has a favorite, there are several who say they just can't decide. And why should they? It's June 2015. The next Western Conservative Summit is a year from now — and it will come and go before the Republican Convention.