The Republican presidential primary will kick off, unofficially, Saturday in Iowa, as nearly one dozen potential candidates converge on Des Moines for a convention organized by Rep. Steve King.
If it feels early, it is. But the 2016 primary field is shaping up as one of the most competitive in years. If you build an event, the candidates will come.
Hawkeye State Republican King, with an assist from the group Citizens United, did just that, with his Freedom Summit.
Nationally, King is perhaps best known for his controversial remarks on immigration. But, in presidential politics, he is a hot commodity: an Iowa elected official whose endorsement could give clout to conservatives in the crucial Iowa caucuses.
In 2012, King did not endorse Mitt Romney until after the caucuses had concluded, although he says now that he had hoped to make a pick prior to the vote.
“I just couldn’t get there,” King said in an interview this week with the Washington Examiner. “An endorsement is different than going in to put up a vote. It has to be a conviction, because it’s a strong, strong recommendation.”
“I hope to get to that kind of conviction this time where I can make an endorsement,” King added.
The GOP contenders who will travel to Iowa this weekend are hoping the same. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and former Sen. Rick Santorum are all slated to speak. Ditto Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Dr. Ben Carson, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, and others.
As notable as those potential candidates who will be in attendance are those who will not — including the two strongest contenders in early opinion polls. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who last month announced he is exploring a bid for president, is skipping due to scheduling conflicts, his office said. Romney, who has in the past few weeks begun to seriously consider a third bid for president, will also be absent.
“If (Romney) can kind find a way to make it work, we have a slot for him,” King said earlier this week, “but neither do I want to put pressure on him.”
King also extended an invite to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who served formerly with King in the House and is seen as a credible conservative candidate for president should he run. But Pence won’t be in Iowa on Saturday, either.
“He was concerned—” King halted, realizing he might have said too much.
Pence has not signaled whether he wants to run in 2016 and gets little attention from the media, but he has been traveling broadly around the United States, visited Israel over the Christmas holiday and will address the Republican Jewish Coalition’s meeting in Las Vegas in April. But King is not an easy politician with whom to share a stage, for fear by some candidates of guilt by association.
At an August event with King, Sen. Rand Paul, another likely presidential contender, sat by as a group of DREAMers confronted King about his views on immigration while a camera rolled. Paul, without subtlety, scurried out of the frame.
But King says immigration will not be the deciding factor for him in 2016.
“Restoration of the Constitution and the rule of law,” King said. ‘That is No. 1.”
Nor will ideology ultimately be paramount — although at this early stage, King said, it should be an important consideration among Republicans.
“We should be selecting the planks for the platform and hammering out the details for those planks,” King said.
But King said the party must also consider what candidate has a chance of winning — a sort of political pragmatism with which he is not usually associated.
“Even if you like where someone stands on all the issues, can they get elected? That will be part of the debate,” King said. “We need to be about having our cake and eating it, too.”
The primary process in Iowa to help select that nominee will not truly begin until August, when the Iowa GOP will hold its legendary straw poll.
Some Iowa Republicans hoped this cycle to cancel or alter the event, which is an important fundraiser for the party just as it is a litmus test for many presidential candidates. The straw poll can give off false signals, however: then-Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota won the straw poll in 2011, but went on to finish in sixth place in the January 2012 caucus, with just 6,000 of more than 120,000 votes cast.
But, after a vote earlier this month by the Iowa GOP’s central committee, the straw poll will remain intact — and King says it will look largely the same.
“A lot of us had trouble understanding how you could have a straw poll without a straw poll, so we’re going to vote,” King said. He opted against holding a straw poll this weekend at his event, deciding it was too early in the process.
But a few potential candidates might start the race with an advantage, at least in the contest to curry favor with King. Cruz worked with King to block the Gang of Eight immigration proposal last year, and the two men have hunted pheasants together in Iowa.
“It should always be easier to support someone who you’ve worked with closely,” King said of Cruz.
But King also became close with Santorum during the 2012 presidential election cycle.
“He’s been to our place,” King recalled. “We had dinner and sat around, and talked history and religion and philosophy and the galaxy.”
The topics of conversation this weekend will likely be more constrained, not only because the summit will include dozens of speakers. And all eyes, in politics anyway, will be on Iowa.
That’s exactly how King planned it, and why he picked this date.
“There were a couple of outstanding football games last weekend, and then the next weekend is the Super Bowl,” King said. “We know our marketing. Don’t go up against the NFL.”
