For Ted Cruz, Iowa Victory Proves More Than Evangelical Support
After a month of bruising attacks and sliding poll numbers, Ted Cruz is back on track.
The Texas senator pulled off a major victory in Iowa Monday night, winning the Republican caucuses with 28 percent support, four points ahead of billionaire real-estate mogul Donald Trump, who had been needling Cruz for weeks over his Canadian birthplace and Wall Street loans, and five points ahead of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whom no Iowa poll nor frontrunner perceived as a real threat in the Hawkeye State.
Cruz’s win was owed in large part to evangelical voters, who consistently play an outsize role in the first-in-the-nation nominating contest. More than 60 percent of Republican caucus-goers identified as evangelical Christians, according to entrance poll data, and Cruz won over about a third of them.
A loss in Iowa, while not fatal, would have been disastrous for Cruz.
“It was almost a must-win for Cruz,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell. “Part of it is the outsize evangelical population of Iowa, but also the caucus format – he was tailor-made for Iowa. If he couldn’t win there, it might of been a damaging blow to his chances.”
Marco Rubio: A Traitor To His Generation?
At 44 years old, with a baby face and self-professed “love” of Tupac, Marco Rubio is often touted as the GOP’s best hope of appealing to younger voters. But on social issues, like LGBT rights and abortion, the Florida senator and Republican presidential candidate sounds less like a Gen Xer and more like a grandpa.
Considering the current presidential field, the remarks weren’t altogether shocking. Not one Republican candidate supports same-sex marriage and about half oppose allowing abortions even in cases of rape or incest.
Still, they were a little surprising for Rubio, who often plays up his youth on the campaign trail – or at least, tries to – stressing education reform, his own student loans, and the game Candy Crush.
Beyond raising red flags for the future of the GOP, Rubio’s CBN remarks also served as a striking reminder of the unique dynamics of this Republican primary battle, one where the traditional “moderate vs. conservative” theme has pretty much gone out the window.
“The old model is out,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell told MSNBC. “What we have now are three people [Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and front-runner Donald Trump] trying to carve out the broadest portion of the electorate as possible.”
Aside from Trump’s ability to consistently defy the laws of political gravity, one of the principle narratives of this election so far has been the ongoing battle between Cruz and Rubio, the two candidates currently duking it out for second place – potentially first! – should Trump’s bubble ultimately burst.
Mike Huckabee’s Latest Strategy Aims To Turn Trolling Into Better Polling
With the Iowa caucuses a little over three months away, Huckabee has yet to have his moment. His poll numbers are bad (though not bad enough to bump him from the mainstage at next week’s CNBC debate.) And he’s way behind in the GOP money race, having raised just $1.24 million – the lowest out of all the 10 candidates who’ve made a top-tier debate this year.
Given those challenges, it’s understandable then to see Huckabee now dabbling with a bit of political theater, to say the least. A former Baptist pastor, Fox News pundit, and author of several books, Huckabee knows how to speak in soundbites to get a good headline – particularly when it comes to social issues. Most recently, he’s picked a fight with Rainbow Doritos, criticized President Obama’s treatment of the pope as “classless,” and staged a highly dramatic scene outside a Kentucky jail for the release of anti-gay marriage Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis. Like Donald Trump, Huckabee has also been a consistent source of entertainment on Twitter, although he hasn’t proven to be quite as politically adept at it as the real estate mogul.
Yet with the summer “silly season” long gone and the presidential field beginning to winnow, this latest Benghazi rant begs a serious question: Is Mike Huckabee still making a genuine play for the White House, or just trolling the candidates who are?
The Huckabee camp, for its part, insists it’s the former.
Some are skeptical of Team Huckabee’s optimism, however, and view his inflammatory tweeting as a clear act of desperation, if not outright trolling.
“People aren’t taking him that seriously,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell, who worked with Arizona Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008. “I don’t know if he’s solely just a troll. But he’s definitely a candidate who’s down on his luck, grasping at straws.”
“[Huckabee’s] strong point has always been social conservatives, and right now they’re gravitating toward Carson and Cruz,” said O’Connell. “He’s a man without a slice of the party right now.”
Will Ted Cruz, The Anti-Washington Crusader, Shut Down The Government?
With his poll numbers falling far short of those garnered by Republican presidential candidates who’ve never held elected office, Ted Cruz has a chance this week to prove he’s just as anti-Washington as his rivals atop the leaderboard — despite the “Texas senator” title that suggests he’s part of the political establishment.
On Tuesday, Cruz could reprise his starring role in a congressional fight to fund the government, this time over taxpayer dollars going to Planned Parenthood.
But the White House hopeful’s stand against the spending bill is likely as political as it is principled.
“For Cruz’s presidential campaign, the stakes couldn’t be higher in terms of the upcoming congressional showdown,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who worked on Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “He wants to be seen as a political outsider and, right now, he’s not gaining traction in the polls because he’s seen as an insider.”
It’s still unclear what Cruz plans to do when the Senate puts the continuing resolution to a final vote on Tuesday. Cruz’s Senate office did not reply to a request for comment, and he has not made any promises to embark on another 21-hour floor speech. But even if he decides not to put up a fight this time around, Cruz will have another chance to do so in December, when the stopgap spending bill runs out, conveniently just before the 2016 nominating contest kicks into high gear. Congress will also have to vote to raise the debt ceiling around the same time.
“December could be a make or break moment for Cruz,” O’Connell said.
Rick Santorum Visits All 99 Counties In Iowa, But Will It Pay Off?
Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is celebrating a campaign milestone on Tuesday with his completion of the “full Grassley” – or tour of all 99 counties in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation nominating state. It’s the second election in a row that Santorum has pulled off such a feat. Though it’s unlikely to bear as much fruit for the man who finished second to Mitt Romney in the Republican primary race four years ago.
For months, Santorum has struggled to gain traction in the polls despite maintaining a near-constant presence in Iowa – a state he carried in the 2012 primary contest. A new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll, for example, found Santorum pulling just 1% support among likely GOP caucusgoers in the Hawkeye State, far below the 23% support GOP frontrunner Donald Trump raked in. A recent Monmouth University poll, meanwhile, showed Santorum with 2% of the vote in Iowa – again way behind Trump and neurosurgeon Ben Carson, both of whom garnered 23% support among likely GOP caucusgoers.
At least publicly, Santorum tends to shrug off such results. “Four years ago, I was sitting pretty much where I am today – at the robust 1% level,” he said last week during an appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” A few weeks earlier, Santorum’s spokesperson similarly dismissed the polls, telling msnbc the campaign was actually “in a growing mode.”
But while Santorum was able to turn that 1% support into 11 primary victories in 2012, GOP strategists say it’s a long shot for history to repeat itself.
“He is where he was four years ago; the difference is the competition four years ago was far weaker than it is now,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who worked on John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.
“Before, [Santorum] was competing against the Yale football team,” O’Connell said. “Now he’s competing against the New York Giants.”
Are Chris Christie And Scott Walker Out Trumping Donald Trump On Border Security?
It looks like some Republican presidential candidates are trying to out trump Donald Trump on immigration, putting forth their own out-there ideas to secure the nation’s borders.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Saturday proposed tracking immigrants similar to the way FedEx keeps tabs of its packages. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has not ruled out building a wall along the far less controversial border between the U.S. and Canada.
Among the many GOP 2016 campaigns, Trump, the Republican front-runner, has managed to steal the spotlight on immigration. The billionaire real estate mogul wants to build a 2,000-mile, permanent border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants, put an end to the policy known as birthright citizenship and methodically arrest and deport more than 11 million illegal immigrants with the hope that the “good ones” will eventually be let back into the country.
Walker and Christie’s latest immigration rhetoric seems aimed at differentiating themselves from the crowded Republican field and gaining traction on an issue that Trump is clearly dominating.
“They can’t figure out how to get their message across given that Trump’s eating up all of the oxygen … It is attention seeking because they can’t get attention any other way,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist and former John McCain campaign adviser. “They risk being portrayed as cartoon characters of themselves.”
Can The Other GOP Candidates Trump Donald Trump In The First Big Debate?
With just two days until the first Republican presidential debate, all eyes are fixed on Donald Trump, the unpredictable, brash, billionaire real estate mogul who has found himself at the top of the polls – and sucking up nearly all of the 2016 oxygen in the process.
The never-shy, always-controversial Trump will almost certainly score the coveted center-stage slot on the Cleveland debate stage. And that puts his fellow candidates in a tough position: How do they deal with this boastful birther? Do they engage with him? Do they try to talk with him seriously and substantively? Do they shrug him off as some kind of carnival barker? Do they attack him? Do they avoid him altogether?
It’s a tricky balancing act; after all, he does have a quarter of the GOP electorate behind him, and the more serious candidates lagging in the polls will surely be wary of alienating Trump backers by dissing The Donald.
Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist and another former McCain adviser, didn’t buy Trump’s talk. “He’s going to come and debate,” said O’Connell, adding that his M.O. is “undersell and overdeliver.”
Which strategy will pay off? O’Connell said it depends on the candidate. If you’re doing well in the polls – like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush or Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker – “engaging Trump is not the smartest option. Stick to the issues and stay above the fray no matter what Trump does. No need to roll in the mud just yet.”
But if you’re a lower-tiered candidate, like Christie, Paul, or Huckabee, “Tussling with Trump could get you headlines, it could give you momentum. But Trump punches pretty mightily, so you have to be careful.”
Is Donald Trump Stealing Chris Christie’s Thunder?
The never-shy, always controversial Donald Trump has been sucking up nearly all the 2016 oxygen over the last few weeks – and in the process, he’s drawn more than a few comparisons with another big-talking presidential candidate: Chris Christie.
They’re both northeastern Republicans. They’re known for a bold and unfiltered style. It’s not hard to see how they might be duking it out for the title of the true “tell it like it is” 2016 presidential candidate.
But is “The Apprentice” host really stealing the Garden State governor’s thunder? Not really.
“It’s the difference of telling it like it is in Christie’s case and literally blowing your brains out on the sidewalk with no filter in the case of Donald Trump,” said Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist and former John McCain campaign adviser. “For Christie it’s about him looking for footing in a very crowded field, a campaign tactic. For Trump, that’s the way his ego runs.”
All of those hurdles, however, have nothing to do with Trump, whose vanity candidacy is taken seriously by almost no one among Washington’s professional political class, despite the fact that he’s polling solidly.
There may be one big downside for Christie – along with much of the rest of the GOP field – with so much attention being given to Trump, however.
“He’s sucking the oxygen out of the room for the GOP field. Many candidates have impressive messages but they just can’t get it out there. If your name isn’t Jeb Bush or Donald Trump, no one’s talking about you,” said O’Connell.
Could Nikki Haley’s Confederate Flag ‘Moment’ Payoff In 2016?
Nikki Haley is back.
Despite being elected with great fanfare in 2010, the Republican governor of South Carolina had for years all but disappeared from the national political conversation. That all changed very fast this week, when Haley called for the Confederate flag outside her state capitol to be taken down in the aftermath of a racially charged mass shooting that left nine African-American parishioners dead at a historically black church in her state.
The picture was impressive – and historic. Here was a female minority governor in a historically conservative state, flanked by Republicans and Democrats, black and white, many of whom had once argued that there was no need to take down the flag. Haley swiftly and gracefully did what no one had been able to do in 50 years: Declare the flag a divisive symbol and put pressure on South Carolina’s conservative lawmakers to take it down. Lawmakers Tuesday voted to take up the issue, and may well vote to remove the flag in mere weeks.
Plenty of skeptics argue that it shouldn’t have taken a mass shooting for Haley to do the right thing. Others say Haley was merely doing damage control, providing cover to an emerging GOP presidential field that largely shied away from making similar calls after the massacre. But nonetheless, Haley’s strong stand seems like a clear win for her – and potentially elevates the governor’s as a national figure and may have placed her on the short list as a GOP vice presidential nominee in 2016.
“I think it ups her VP stock. There’s no question about it,” said Republican strategist and former John McCain campaign adviser Ford O’Connell. “She started as a bright star but somewhere in the line got lost in the mix. This situation puts her back at the top.”
Chris Christie On Bridgegate: Voters Understand ‘Mistakes Get Made’
Days after federal prosecutors brought charges against three of his former allies, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie insisted in this first-in-the-nation primary state that his response to the “Bridgegate” scandal proves his leadership bona fides.
Christie was responding to a question from msnbc during a Q&A with reporters about what he would say to critics who contend that even if he didn’t know about the 2013 lane closure scandal – carried out by some of his staffers and allies, seemingly for political retribution – it raises red flags about who he’d allow to be on his central team if he does run for president in 2016.
Still, polls in the wake of the Bridgegate indictments have left the Republican’s numbers in a freefall in his home state. But when it comes to his potential 2016 campaign, Christie is still pressing onward, holding six stops Thursday and Friday in New Hampshire which is emerging as the do-or-die state for the embattled governor. Even in the Granite State, where the governor – a fellow northeastern Republican – could conceivably do well, he’s only polling at 3% among likely Republican voters and in 10th place overall among the emerging GOP field, according to a new survey by WMUR.
Christie is “literally on his last leg,” said Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist who served on John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008. O’Connell said that while the latest indictments certainly don’t help the governor, the bigger problems he faces are his state’s economic woes and his decreasing popularity back at home. “But as long as he’s not indicted, he still has a chance,” O’Connell added.
