The GOP’s field of 2016 dreams

The Texas governor, who will leave office this week after the longest gubernatorial tenure in state history, began studying policy for one or two hours twice a week. He adopted a new look: all-black clothing and slick-framed glasses. He jetted to Davos to speak at the World Economic Forum, launched a leadership PAC, and hired the Washington firm FP1 to guide his national strategy.

Perry’s aspirational pivot from laughingstock to serious presidential candidate was blatant, and he knew it. So he didn’t take it personally when, at a lobbyist’s home in Texas last year, a friend mocked the governor’s new eyewear.

“Don’t hate just because you can’t pull it off,” Perry laughed, according to someone present.

Many candidates treat the early stages of a presidential campaign in the manner of a child playing peek-a-boo, hiding behind noncommittal platitudes. But Perry’s brief, bungled campaign in 2011 and 2012 ruled out coquettishness in favor of a highly visible, deliberate comeback.

“When you have a bad campaign, donors want to see the apology tour,” said one Republican strategist with ties to the governor. “Perry has done that.”

Perry needs to pull off that transformation in the eyes of donors and voters this year as Republicans, perhaps more than can be counted on two hands, line up to run for the White House against Hillary Clinton, the undisputed frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.

Now, nearly two years before voters will choose their next president, and a full year before the Iowa caucuses, that queue is already stretching around the block. It’s fairly certain that the GOP field will be more diverse and formidable than it has been for several cycles.

The list of likely candidates includes governors and senators, political neophytes, first-time presidential candidates and repeat offenders, candidates as young as 43 (Sen. Marco Rubio) and as old as 67 (Mitt Romney).

Former Govs. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who until recently appeared unlikely to run, are now moving purposefully toward bids.

Post by Washington Examiner Water Cooler.

“The more the merrier,” Sen. Rand Paul, himself a likely contender, said in December, when Bush announced his exploration of the idea.

“The more the merrier,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Paul supporter, repeated after Romney confirmed to donors and allies that he’s getting ready to run.

“May the best person win,” House Speaker John Boehner, a Bush supporter, approximately echoed when asked about Romney.

***

Two weeks into the new year, Sen. Rand Paul was already schmoozing with New Hampshire state lawmakers in Murphy’s Diner in Manchester.

Just one day earlier had come the announcement that Chip Englander, who most recently guided Bruce Rauner to victory in Illinois’ gubernatorial race, would serve as Paul’s campaign manager — if there was to be a presidential campaign, Paul’s aides cautioned with rhetorical winks.

Now, Paul was making the first stop during a packed day in New Hampshire, with a fundraiser to follow in Boston that evening, before he would fly to Phoenix and Las Vegas for more events.

In remarks that contained the early hints of a stump speech, Paul focused on government overreach and foreign policy issues, such as “Hillary’s war in Libya” — a dig at the former secretary of state. He threw in some red meat, too, calling for a full repeal of Obamacare if possible.

Over multiple presidential campaigns, Paul’s father Ron built a robust network in New Hampshire. In 2012, Ron Paul finished second to Mitt Romney in the state’s primary.

But Rand Paul, who has sought to separate himself from some of his father’s more extreme policies, has said he will not welcome his father on the campaign trail with him and will chart his own course in the Granite State.

So Paul started early: first, at Murphy’s Diner, then on to a Second Amendment event, one focusing on Common Core and another with local business leaders. A tracker from the Democratic PAC American Bridge followed Paul to each stop, posting video of one remark by Paul that many people receiving government disability pay are overstating their disability.

The trip was a sign of what’s to come.

“Now that we’re up to the phase where the calendar has turned, we’re going to see a lot of action very quickly,” said Tom Rath, a veteran New Hampshire Republican operative.

Just days earlier he had spoken on the phone with Romney, who called to confirm that he is considering a third try. Rath, who worked as a senior adviser to Romney in New Hampshire in 2012, was one of a number of Republican connections in the state whom Romney dialed that weekend.

Romney had first broken the news to a small group of donors in New York City: “I want to be president,” he said, departing completely from the message he’d delivered a year ago. Just 12 months ago, in January 2014, when asked by the New York Times whether he might consider running, Romney’s answer was, “Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. People are always gracious and say, ‘Oh, you should run again.’ I’m not running again.”

But even as he swatted away entreaties for a third bid, Romney maintained a robust presence throughout last November’s congressional elections as a surrogate and fundraiser for Republican candidates across the country — and, notably, in the key presidential primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

“He has been here for candidates and he hasn’t forgotten us, even when he wasn’t running,” Rath said.

Romney would be the first losing nominee to run for president again since Richard Nixon in 1968. His allies have sought to cast this in a positive light.

“Experience is a great advantage,” said one senior pro-Romney strategist, “like trying to get to the Super Bowl having been in the playoffs before is an advantage.”

But experience is not always appealing after a two-term presidency, when people crave a fresh face. Just ask Hillary Clinton how experience played for her against then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008. Come to think of it, it would be worth asking her how she thinks it will play in 2016 — and doubtless many people will.

And what about Jeb Bush? He has not run for president before, but his brother and father have and his candidacy is predicated on brand recognition and experience. The tiredness of the brand and the mixed feelings about the brand, to put it no more strongly, might be why other Republican hopefuls do not look like they’re being scared off by the early emergence of front-running Romney and Bush.

“Jeb’s a problem for everyone when it comes to fundraising,” said one Republican operative with ties to him. “The universe of people he causes fundraising problems for is much larger than the universe of people he causes political problems for.”

In particular, Republicans widely predict that Bush would suffer among conservatives for his support of liberal immigration reform and Common Core education standards.

“Jeb is just unlucky,” this source said, “He supported this thing called ‘Common Core.’ What were the chances that this was going to become the No. 1 issue for conservatives?”

But Bush has not changed his position, and his likely opponents have already begun to attack him for it. During his swing through New Hampshire last week, Paul convened an anti-Common Core meeting, a veiled jab at Bush.

“We’re stuck with Common Core,” one woman at the meeting groaned, resignedly.

“Depends on what you elect me to,” Paul said, to applause.

***

As New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivered his annual State of the State address last week, it was apparent that he was talking about the nation rather than just New Jersey.

“America’s leadership in the world is called into question because of a pattern of indecision and inconsistency,” he said, speaking at the statehouse in Trenton, N.J. “During this time of uncertainty it seems our leaders in Washington would rather stoke division for their own political gain. And this culture of divisiveness and distrust has seeped into our communities and our neighborhoods.”

Before the speech, state media reported that the governor had met with national news outlets for off-the-record discussions from which New Jersey news media were excluded.

Christie is not trying to conceal his interest in the White House. As a fresh face on the presidential campaign trail, he must introduce himself to national media, donors and party power brokers, and hurriedly win their favor.

In early December, he welcomed a handful of national reporters to a party at the governor’s mansion, Drumthwacket, where Garden State pols and statehouse reporters also mingled. A few weeks later, his communications director, Maria Comella, and director of digital media Lauren Fritts traveled to Washington for a Google party, overlooking the White House, to continue the charm offensive.

Most significantly, Christie spent last year at the helm of the Republican Governors Association, a post that connected him with major donors across the country and earned him IOUs with the governors he helped elect.

Christie adviser Mike DuHaime “had a very strong hand” at the RGA during Christie’s chairmanship, a former staffer noted, and was involved in decisions on staff hires, expenditures and strategy. “I wasn’t on a single conference call he wasn’t on,” the staffer said of DuHaime. The job also connected Christie will Phil Cox, who served as RGA executive director and is the top pick to lead Christie’s presidential campaign.

Christie is moving quickly, with plans to establish a political action committee this month to start raising money. An official announcement will probably come in February.

Another fresh face and serious Republican contender for the presidency is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, but he has taken the opposite approach to Christie. Like his New Jersey rival, Walker plans to remain as governor while running for president. But he will probably wait until summer to announce his bid, partly because of his state legislature’s schedule. He is likely to be one of the last to make his ambitions official.

Walker spent 2014 fighting for re-election and is only now starting to do the serious national networking that Christie (who breezed to a second term in 2013) and others have been focused on for the past year. Last week, Walker traveled to San Diego to schmooze at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting, and later this month he will start his primary-state travel with a trip to Iowa to speak at a cattle call of presidential candidates hosted by Rep. Steve King.

***

This month, Mike Huckabee interrupted his regularly scheduled Fox News programming to announce he was quitting his show.

“There has been a great deal of speculation as to whether I would run for president,” Huckabee said. “If I were willing to absolutely rule that out, I could keep doing this show. But I can’t make such a declaration.”

Huckabee, who ran in 2008, flirted with doing so again 2012 but decided against it. This time, allies say, he is serious again. He has launched a political action committee, written another book, and quit his exceptionally lucrative television job.

“Last time his heart wasn’t in it,” said one former aide. “He has a different sense of peace about running this time. He has the peace and calm in his spirit to make this run.”

So does Rick Santorum, another conservative with a presidential campaign already under his belt. Allies say a Huckabee bid probably won’t put Santorum off. “Rick’s an Italian kid from a steel town,” said one former aide. “No one’s going to deter or dissuade him from running.”

In the race for the Christian-conservative right, Santorum and Huckabee will face a formidable first-time foe in Sen. Ted Cruz. The Texan made a name for himself as firebrand during the government shutdown of late 2013. His opponents and supporters will doubtless invoke this image. Santorum has already called him a “bomb thrower.”

In a speech this month to the Heritage Foundation in Washington, Cruz made it clear he does not intend to soften his approach. “There are some who believe that the path to Republican victory is to run to the mushy middle, is to blur distinctions,” he said. “I think recent history has shown us that’s not a path to success. It doesn’t work. It’s a failed electoral strategy.”

But Cruz aides say this approach is calculatedly pragmatic rather than ideologically stubborn. “He has no interest in running to just defend some kind of message,” said one Cruz staffer. “If he’s running, it is because he thinks he can win and he’s running to win.”

The campaign will look not only to the conservative base for support, but “at expanding the map to include independents and non-traditional Republican voters: Democrats who are willing to cross over, Jewish voters, Hispanic voters, millennials, Reagan Democrats.”

“I would even include Cruz appealing to women,” the staffer said.

The prospect of Cruz drawing broad support has put the Republican establishment on high alert. Kern Gardner, a close Romney ally, said in an interview last month with a Utah news outlet that Cruz’s success alone would be enough to lure Romney into the race for president.

“If it’s Ted Cruz that’s the candidate, he’s in,” Gardner said.

***

There was once a saying in presidential politics that there are “three tickets out of Iowa”: If a primary candidate finished fourth or worse in the Iowa caucuses, his campaign was kaput.

But super PACs have changed the game. In January 2012, Newt Gingrich finished fourth among Republicans in the caucuses, but, with continued support from Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, his campaign kept going, and Gingrich won the South Carolina primary. He did not concede to Romney until the end of April.

“Campaigns never end because people want them to end. They end because people run out of money,” said a Republican strategist from a 2012 campaign. “The role of super PACs in keeping people in the race is huge.”

In 2016, this is giving hope to a bevy of wild card candidates. In addition to sitting governors including Mike Pence of Indiana and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, along with between-jobs politicians such as Michelle Bachmann and George Pataki, there is also a full deck of newcomers — Ben Carson, a surgeon-turned-conservative icon; John Bolton, who was President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations; and Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

For such candidates, a presidential bid can expand other opportunities. One national Republican with knowledge of Bolton’s thinking said, “He wants to have a national security presence and talk about areas where he can be relevant. Whether he gets in or not — I don’t think he will — I think he definitely wants to be part of the conversation so those issues get addressed.”

Carson and Fiorina appear likely to launch bids, rather than merely drive the primary conversation.

Fiorina has announced trips to Iowa and New Hampshire in coming weeks and has begun hiring campaign staff. She will hold a prime speaking slot this year at CPAC, the annual conservative conference.

Carson will also hit the primary state circuit, and his network in those states, especially Iowa, is already strong. A pro-Carson PAC announced late last year that it has recruited supporters in each of Iowa’s 99 counties, and has also opened an office in Manchester, N.H.

Although divergent politically, Fiorina and Carson would each command a unique niche in the primary: Carson as the only African-American candidate; Fiorina as perhaps the only woman.

“Chris Christie will be asking for the widest possible debate lectern,” an aide to Fiorina quipped. “We’ll be asking for the narrowest.”

***

How sure are these candidacies?

During the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour appeared certain to launch a bid. In 2011, he made the rounds in key primary states; he hired Mike Dennehy, a veteran New Hampshire operative, to run his campaign there; and he lined up Rob Collins, who last year was executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, to serve as campaign manager.

Then, in April 2011, a week before the first debate, Barbour bowed out, telling reporters he did not have an “absolute fire in the belly.”

Now, nearly two years out from the next election, Republicans are staring down the same unpredictable path.

“2008 was supposed to be Rudy [Giuliani] vs. Hillary, and the general election was going to be a debate about the Iraq war,” one GOP strategist noted. “It ended up being McCain vs. Obama talking about the economy.”

“There’s a pretty long road ahead.”