Jeb Bush might not win Iowa, but he’ll show up

URBANDALE, IowaAs Jeb Bush makes his first trip to Iowa as a likely candidate for president this weekend, expectations are being set low.

Very low.

“Welcome to Scott Walker’s Iowa,” laughed one Iowa Republican operative with close ties to Bush’s organization, invoking the Wisconsin governor who is also likely to run for president.

But if Bush is not favored to win the Iowa caucuses early next year, he is signaling he does not intend to forego competing in Iowa, as some candidates have in the past.

The former Florida governor will be one of nearly one dozen Republicans to travel to Iowa for an agriculture summit Saturday. Bush will also hold a few private fundraising events, and meet with Iowans at a Pizza Ranch in Cedar Rapids.

Bush kicked off his trip Friday evening at the Living History Farm in Urbandale, headlining a fundraiser for Rep. David Young. There, Bush recounted his “fond memories of Iowa” from his father’s campaigns for president.

“It was a blast,” Bush said. “I learned to do things I never could have imagined doing. I learned to make a fool of myself speaking. I went to the Muscatine pork roast, I think twice. I saw (Sen.) Chuck Grassley everywhere I went.”

“I’ve done it both ways. I’ve been through Iowa where my dad lost, and I’ve been there when he won,” Bush added. “I like the winning part better, to be honest with you.”

But Bush enters the Iowa race as an underdog and will likely face an uphill slog to earn Iowans’ affections, beginning with his swing through the state this weekend.

Republican caucusgoers have in recent election cycles gravitated toward more conservative candidates, and polling so far suggests that trend is poised to continue. A Quinnipiac University poll last month of likely Iowa caucus participants showed Walker leading the field with 25 percent, and Bush in a distant fifth with 10 percent.

Walker has placed an early focus on building a dominant presence in Iowa. His political committee, Our American Revival, recently leased a cavernous office space in the Des Moines area, which was previously occupied during the 2012 general election by Mitt Romney, and before that by Michele Bachmann in the lead-up to the caucus. Walker’s team this week began to roll out a early Iowa supporters, and he has hired a roster of aides with deep roots in the state.

Bush has also hired some big Iowa guns, most notably the Republican strategist David Kochel, who ran Mitt Romney’s Iowa campaign and is expected to engineer Bush’s national strategy. Annie Kelly, who worked for Tim Pawlenty’s 2012 Iowa campaign and managed Rep. Tom Latham’s campaigns, will lead Bush’s Iowa team.

Bush does not yet have a campaign office in Iowa, although Kelly is in the process of scouting one.

Meanwhile, Bush’s Iowa team has in fact been paddling furiously just below the surface. In the model of Bush’s deliberate outreach to national donors and influential Republicans, “they’ve been very methodically trying to do the same thing in Iowa, very much under the radar,” a senior Iowa Republican said.

“While they’re still debating internally just what kind of campaign and posture to take in Iowa,” the Republican added, “they’re certainly not letting any grass grow under their feet.”

Bush will also likely draw on his family history in Iowa for both a a political network and a narrative. George H.W. Bush won the Iowa caucuses in 1980, when he ultimately lost the Republican nomination to Ronald Reagan; and then lost the caucuses on the way to his successful presidential bid in 1988. George W. Bush won Iowa in 2000.

But Bush’s last name could also pose a challenge, in Iowa and elsewhere, if voters associate him negatively with his brother’s and father’s administrations.

“There is some Bush fatigue,” said Doug Gross, who served as George W. Bush’s finance co-chair in Iowa.

Former Rep. Tom Latham, who attended Young’s fundraiser Friday, downplayed the effect Bush’s last name might have on his campaign in Iowa.

“You get into the general election with a Clinton and a Bush, it kind of washes that whole argument out both ways,” Latham said.

Perhaps more significant to Bush’s chances in Iowa is the trend in recent elections favoring more conservative candidates in the Hawkeye State.

Sen. John McCain lost the Iowa caucus in 2008 to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a favorite of Christian-conservative voters. In 2012, Mitt Romney committed substantial resources to a strong Iowa campaign — and narrowly lost to Sen. Rick Santorum nevertheless.

“Iowa is a black hole for candidates who don’t fit the Christian-conservative mold,” said one Republican operative with Iowa campaign experience.

But, even when winning Iowa is unlikely, completely foregoing campaigning there can also be politically fatal. When Sen. John McCain skipped Iowa in 2000, he created an opening for George W. Bush to win the caucus and gain momentum.

Jeb Bush’s robust schedule of events in the Hawkeye State this weekend suggests “he’s going to be in Iowa” in the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses, one GOP strategist with high-level Iowa experience said.

But, the strategist added, “I don’t think he will win there.”

“Jeb Bush doesn’t need to win Iowa. He doesn’t even need to finish second,” the strategist said. “It’s an opportunity to compete and introduce himself, and that’s something he will do starting this weekend.”

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