CPAC Event — Paul vs Walker

• Rand Paul received plurality but may be losing ground
• Scott Walker doing very well
  

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This Patriot Post article provides a quick conservative summary of this past weekend’s CPAC event.  The straw poll held there, like Iowa’s Republican Party cavalcade and straw poll held in August prior to the presidential election year, is a reflection not so much of national strength as it is resources put in on a good showing.  Rand Paul won the fairly low plurality vote but he has had an active presidential  focused organization “up and running” for a couple of years it seems. And he has been the favorite of the college conservatives they organize to attend the event for the past couple of years. That Scott Walker came in a close second is a tribute to the extensive earned media attention he has been achieving of late. His showing there is consistent with Steve King’s observation after his Freedom Summit five weeks ago in Des Moines. As quoted in Bloomberg News :

“I think Ted Cruz had the highest bar to reach, and I think he cleared that bar, . . .  “I don’t know how much greater than expectations it was, but he at least met and then exceeded expectations… Probably the person who helped himself the most would be Scott Walker. The bar wasn’t as high, and he gave a good speech. He connected with the audience in a good, constructive way.”

With that star power comes scrutiny and Walker has done very well.  Of course he has had four years of intense assault from Democrats in Wisconsin and nationally where he beat them each time to prove his election prowess. The AP reported on the CPAC results as follows and we basically agree with the analysis.

Hundreds of Paul fans had streamed in from across the country for the multi-day event in National Harbor, Md — but his percentage of the vote actually dropped, to 25.7 percent, from 31 percent in 2014. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) had made a major effort, sponsoring buses that brought supporters in from Washington, D.C. to Maryland and paying entry fees for some supporters – a push that brought him a fifth-place showing. Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.), who drew a significant level of grassroots excitement at the conference with a strong performance in his Friday address, drew 21.4 percent of the vote, dramatically and improving on his fifth place showing last year. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who finished second to Paul in 2014, drew 11.5 percent of the vote, roughly the same as he had in 2014.

Neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who boasted a swell of grassroots support at CPAC, came in fourth place. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie came in 10th place, with 2.8 percent of the vote.

Organizers said the results showed “how fluid and open the race is.”

A candidate’s popularity with the Conservative Political Action Conference hasn’t necessarily been a great predictor of his or her success with the larger GOP electorate, as attendees tend to have a stronger libertarian bent than the Republican majority. The Kentucky senator had won the CPAC straw poll in 2013 and 2014, and his father former Texas congressman Ron Paul won in 2010 and 2011. Mitt Romney won in 2012.

Patriot Post filed this report  The CPAC Sizzler: Red Meat for Primaries  (posted here in its entirety with permission)

The Republican presidential primary virtually began this past weekend right outside the Washington Beltway. The event is also known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

The gathering of thousands of activists was treated to candidates and experts engaged in extensive and serious policy discussions. There were no doubts where participants of CPAC stand regarding America’s exceptionalism, Liberty and the Constitution.

Some highlights:

In the face of growing threats in the world (and no, we don’t mean the climate), potential presidential contenders emphasized national security and foreign policy. The Islamic State was clearly identified as Islamic and named as a necessary target for destruction to end its evil and medieval barbarism.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio jumped from the obvious problem of ISIL and the cauldron of toil and trouble of the Middle East to pledging to reverse Obama’s cancellation of the missile defense installations in Europe to appease and pacify the angry Bear of Russia. Rubio pegged the KGB-raised Vladimir Putin as a danger in need of countering, arguing for an expansion of missile defense into Eastern Europe beyond Poland and the Czech Republic.

Rubio assessed Obama’s “JV” foreign policy, characterizing the commander in chief’s frame of reference thusly: “America, and American engagement, is more often the source of our problems than the source of our solutions.” Rubio slammed this view as wrong and dangerous.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal hammered the administration’s “jobs for Jihadistan” approach: “We don’t need a war on international poverty, we need a war on the evil radical Islamic terrorism.” Furthermore, Jindal asserted, Obama’s administration has incompetently failed at formulating and executing a realistic plan aimed at “degrading and destroying ISIS.” Therefore, Jindal concluded, Obama “has shown himself incapable of being our commander in chief.”

On immigration policy, most all of the CPAC featured speakers were in unison in supporting a secured southern border and enforcement of existing laws to encourage and reward legal immigration.

Rubio – of the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” fame – said he’s learned his lesson: “[Y]ou can’t even have a conversation about [illegal immigrants already in the country] until people believe and know – not just believe, but it’s proven to them – that future illegal immigration is brought under control.” He’s absolutely right, despite what many conservatives view as his blemished track record.

On the other hand – and this is no surprise – Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and wannabe-GOP-nominee with big donors on his side, was honest enough not to pander in his proclamation, “Yes, I support a path to legalization” for illegal immigrants currently in our nation. (He also began his tack Left on same-sex marriage, perhaps signaling he won’t even bother trying to convince voters a la Mitt Romney that he really is “severely conservative.”)

The CPAC speaker with the most election wins (three) over the last four years, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, clearly articulated the most basic spirit of America: “Up there in Washington, we have a president who measures success by how many people are dependent on the government. There’s a reason we celebrate the Fourth of July and not April 15, because in America we celebrate our independence from the government and not our dependence on it.”

And former Texas Governor Rick Perry offered up downright Reaganesque optimism: “I’ve never been more certain than I am today that America’s best days remain in front of us. The weakness and incompetence of our government shouldn’t be confused with the strength, the ingenuity and the idealism of the American people.” Perry listed the nation’s painful sufferings through the War Between the States, two world wars and the Carter administration before assuring CPACers, “We will survive the Obama years too.”

The economy, education, tax reform, God, guns and family were other key areas where speakers strummed the heartstrings of this constitutionally conservative crowd. Speeches are one thing, but the most important question left unanswered is this: Can the GOP win the White House in 2016? Or will the GOP lose in the same way it lost in 2012 – with lots of highly paid consultants, an embarrassing ground game and a timid approach to a vision for a great America? Based solely on the roster of CPAC speeches, we’re hopeful that history won’t repeat itself. But we’ll find out soon enough.

Speaking of ground game . . . we are still working on our analysis of the utility of local and state efforts at “ground game,” particularly early voting,  in the last election.

R Mall

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