Sen. Mike Lee outlined the type of Republican candidate he hopes to see run for president next year when he addressed the Iowa Freedom Summit Saturday, becoming one of few lawmakers who made the case for someone other than himself.
“It’s not going to be an easy choice. The 2016 field of candidates could very well be the best and the biggest field of candidates conservatives have ever seen before,” Lee said.
The Utah senator pointed to the fact that Republican candidates for president have lost the popular vote in five of the six presidential elections since Reagan held office.
“If we don’t choose a positive, principled and proven candidate to run in 2016, that number is going to be a disappointing six out of seven,” he said.
Lee opened his remarks by joking about the ambitions of his fellow speakers.
“My name is Mike Lee, I’m from Utah, and I’m not running for president,” he said. “I’m probably the only one up here today who can say that, but there’s got to be somebody not running, after all.”
The Senate Steering Committee chairman highlighted the challenges that await whoever takes the Oval Office at the end of Obama’s term, no matter which party he or she is from.
“The next president is going to walk into a tougher job than perhaps any person to approach this job in a generation,” Lee said. “The question that everybody seems to be asking is whether the men and women thinking about running are up to the job.”
Lee, who serves as counselor to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, compared the present “exciting time” for conservatives to the “permanent winter” of the left. He questioned the Democrats’ support of an “outdated holdover from Washington’s broken political status quo,” apparently alluding to presumed Democratic nominee Hilary Clinton.
Lee described the ideal GOP nominee as one who can “unite, expand and remake the party while up against a liberal media and a self-serving political establishment.”
“I’m looking for someone who has won big, difficult fights after election day, in office,” he said.
Conservatives at the sold-out political event expressed strong support when Lee pushed for a “principled” Republican nominee.
“The principled candidate is not necessarily the guy who yells ‘Freedom!’ the loudest,” Lee said.
But optimism should play an equally important role in the eventual nominee’s campaign, he noted.
“The positive candidate can tell us much more than what he’s against,” Lee said. “He can tell us what he’s for.”
