OKLAHOMA — The presidential contender that may have had the biggest impact at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference this weekend did not attend. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., made no plans to travel to Oklahoma City, but his actions did prevent several likely rivals for the GOP nomination from doing just that.
Paul spoke for nearly 11 hours on the Senate floor earlier this week in opposition to congressional reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Paul’s speech shifted the Senate’s schedule, and forced Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to stay in Washington.
Rubio and Graham appeared onscreen in the main ballroom in pre-recorded messages for the audience, and some in the crowd appeared visibly disappointed. Cruz was scheduled to speak at dinner on Friday. Instead, he appeared on video and his father, Rafael Cruz, attended. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson spoke in Cruz’s place.
When compared with last year’s straw poll, Cruz dropped two spots this weekend. Rick Tyler, Cruz’s spokesman, said he was initially worried that the senator’s absence could hurt his chances among Oklahomans and at the straw poll, but thought Cruz’s father adequately picked up the slack.
“He [Rafael Cruz] knocked it out of the park,” Tyler told the Washington Examiner. “We will be back to Oklahoma.”
Gerry Evenwel, an SRLC attendee who supports Cruz and heard his father speak at dinner, would have preferred to see the senator in person, but said he enjoyed hearing Cruz’s father, too.
“I think we all understood; everybody who has been in session hasn’t been here,” Evenwel said. “Business is business.”
Other attendees simply appeared happy that the candidates decided to come to Oklahoma in the first place. June Owens, an Oklahoman attendee, said she thought the video appearances by the absent senators were “enough,” and that she was all in for Ben Carson.
Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Randy Brogdon told the Examiner he never spoke with anyone from the Paul campaign about its plans and how they could impact the SRLC, but he had hoped Paul would come.
“Oklahoma, we have not had something like this before, we haven’t had 14 presidential candidates come through and share their vision with us Okies,” Brogdon said. “It went very well with the cards we were dealt at the last minute.”
Several presidential contenders who did take the stage seemed more interested in Paul than some of the attendees. In his speech on Friday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie criticized Paul’s struggle against the Patriot Act without mentioning the senator by name. Christie offered his take on the Paul’s effort, saying, “It’s a very dangerous debate because it’s done by people who have no experience with it [using the Patriot Act].”
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush followed Christie on stage and seconded Christie’s push for “aggressive law enforcement and strong intelligence laws.”
“There is ample evidence that it [the Patriot Act] is a tool to keep us safe,” Bush said. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, too, indicated during his speech that he did not agree with those who opposed reauthorization of the Patriot Act.
The only candidate who did choose to side with Paul was Ben Carson, who won the SRLC straw poll. Carson began his speech on Saturday by thanking the audience for its prayers for his ill mother, and then said, “I just want to thank the senators who were supposed to be here for standing up for our Fourth Amendment rights.”
Carson won the first major straw poll of the presidential campaign with more than a quarter of the vote, while Paul received 4.1 percent of the total vote, which tied Rubio. Cruz fell from first place last year to third this year, and Graham garnered just 0.5 percent of the total votes cast.
Paul is not responsible for his competitors’ performance, but he did manage to suck some of the wind out of Oklahoma. Cruz’s spokesman said he did not believe Paul’s “filibuster” was partially motivated by a desire to harm his competition and keep other candidates from making it to Oklahoma. Brogdon agreed that Paul would not do such a thing.
“I think Senator Paul is about as principled as they come, and he was trying to do what he thought was best in stopping the renewal of the Patriot Act,” Brogdon said. “And I got to give extra credit to anyone that will stand up for what they will truly believe in.”
On Saturday, the Paul campaign celebrated their victory — in Washington. The Senate did not agree to extend the controversial surveillance law.
“I stood on the floor [of the Senate] for roughly 11 hours in defense of the Fourth Amendment and successfully blocked the renewal of the Patriot Act,” Paul said in a statement released by his campaign. “This is only the beginning — the first step of many.”
