The Race For 2016 Is On In Iowa
Businessman Donald Trump addresses the crowd at the Iowa Freedom Summit.
Des Moines, Iowa – The Iowa Caucuses are over a year away, but the political theater is already underway in Iowa.
This past weekend, that theater got a jump start at the Congressman Steve King (R) and Citizens United, Iowa Freedom Summit, hosted in Des Moines.
Congressman King is from the Iowa 4th Congressional District, which is shaping up to be the conservative bastion of Iowa. Besides King, Bob Vander Plaats of the Family Leader and Rev. Carey Gordon of Cornerstone World Outreach, all call northwest Iowa home.
The historic Hoyt Sherman Place stage played host to the twenty plus speakers, each talking between 20 to 35 minutes. The event was deemed a sellout, and there is little reason to doubt that indeed it was.
The message that was sent from this now small venue could easily be equated to a starter’s gun. The race for 2016 has begun. Of the 20 or so speakers, possibly 9 have expressed an interest in running for president.
There were some individuals who have expressed interest in the job that were not present. That begged the question about the relevancy of Iowa and its first in the nation status, and the importance of Iowa’s caucus process.
None of that mattered at the Iowa Freedom Summit. The Republican candidates and speakers took aim at those in the Democrat Party, and the policies of President Obama, “Our country is really headed in the wrong direction with a president who’s doing an absolutely terrible job. The world is collapsing around us. And many of the problems, we’ve caused.”
“Politicians are all talk and no action,” said Trump.
But beyond the normal political targets for Republicans, folks like business mogul Donald Trump sniped at two republicans not at the event. Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush have both expressed interest in possibly running. “It can’t be Mitt, because Mitt ran and failed.”
“He choked,” said Trump of Mitt Romney and the failed bid to become president in 2012. “Something happened to him in the last month. He had that won.”
Trump said he believes this election cycle will be tougher to win for the Republicans, “than beating a failed President”.
“You can’t have Bush,” said Trump, to the cheers and claps from the crowd. “The last thing we need is another Bush.”
Romney and Bush were not in attendance at the Iowa Freedom Summit, but many contenders were. Those in attendance included: Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Scott Walker, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee.
The debate about the importance of Iowa came up in a recent conversation with potential presidential candidate Rick Santorum. Last time Santorum completed ‘The Full Grassley’ and came away the Iowa Caucus winner, eventually.
“We got a big spike in money, we had a big spike in interest and volunteers,” explained Santorum. He agreed that the process in Iowa did help to weed out other candidates “and put us in the race,” said Santorum of his showing in Iowa.
In March, the road to the White House continues with the Iowa Ag Summit. This event will feature potential candidates from both political parties.
