ATLANTA, GA. — Erick Erickson organized the RedState Gathering of conservative activists with the intention of helping destroy the Iowa Straw Poll. By luring presidential candidates to the deep South in the dog days of August, the editor of the conservative blog RedState helped kill the Iowan tradition.
The seventh annual Red State Gathering kicked off on Thursday, and promises to be more politically influential than any of the past events.
“This is the largest gathering of presidential candidates in Georgia’s history at one time,” he told the crowd gathered at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta in Buckhead. “This weekend is going to have a lot of attention from the media from the world because the next president of the United States will be speaking [here] this weekend.”
Ten GOP presidential candidates are scheduled to attend. On Friday, the gathering will meet across the street to accommodate a larger crowd. Approximately 800 attendees have registered for the events and nearly 1,000 are expected to show up on Saturday, he said. Press from 12 countries will cover the events.
In years past, a RedState activist told the Washington Examiner, many of the attendees knew or recognized each other, but that has all changed. Erickson told the crowd that the events’ format would differ from years’ past, too.
Rather than allow the candidates to deliver speeches, Erickson will do a question and answer session with each of the candidates in attendance, and he will allow the audience to submit written questions. He asked event-goers to remain polite, perhaps expecting that some unruly attendees could take things too far. On Thursday, some RedState attendees hurled obscenities when former Florida Gov. Bush appeared onscreen at the debate watch party.
“We’re going to have candidates from across the Republican Party, not all of whom define themselves as conservative, but they do want to speak to conservatives and try to convince you that we can all work together to defeat Hillary Clinton and the Democrats,” Erickson told the audience to much applause.
Later in the evening, he dispatched the hospitable tone he hoped the conference-goers would adopt when talking about Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Erickson said he wouldn’t have invited Kasich to the event if Kasich were “the last person on earth,” and said he “fills the angry jacka** slot” in the 2016 Republican primary field that Arizona Sen. John McCain previously occupied in 2008.
Another Republican often perceived as a “moderate” or “establishment” candidate, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, will be the first presidential candidate to appear at the gathering on Friday morning. Many in the audience booed when he appeared onscreen during the debate — as they did when Kasich and Bush were shown, too. Christie could expect to encounter a hostile crowd on Friday morning, but he might not be the only candidate to do so.
Whether his confrontational style will sit well with the audience who booed his spat with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on the debate stage remains uncertain. But his campaign has already told members of the press Christie will not have any media availability while traveling through Georgia, perhaps expecting he may want to make a quick exit.
