WAUKEE, Iowa — The political migration has begun in earnest to Iowa.
Nine Republican presidential hopefuls flocked to the state Saturday, targeting voters at ice-cream socials and positioning themselves as tough on “radical Islamists” and staunch supporters of “religious liberty.”
Behind them came the media — lots and lots of media.
“You have more media people here than we have voting people,” grumbled Lee Stine, one of about 100 who came to listen to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at an Urbandale restaurant earlier in the day.
The candidates flew in to the state for a chance to woo the strong evangelical community at a political forum, held Saturday night, sponsored by the Faith & Freedom Coalition.
Nine contenders tried to position themselves before a raucous crowd of 1,200 as the best candidate to run against Hillary Clinton, the Democrat many Republicans assume will be their opponent next fall.
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The nine included many of the GOP field’s leading hopefuls: Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum and Scott Walker.
Two of the best-known hopefuls were missing in action: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
It was one of the largest cattle calls of possible presidential candidates in Iowa.
Foreign policy dominated many of the speeches, with contender after contender bashing President Barack Obama as “weak” on foreign policy.
“How can it be that our president shows more concern for the ayatollah in Iran than our allies in Israel,” said Rubio, who was making his first appearance in Iowa since announcing his presidential bid earlier this month.
Walker, though still undeclared but considered one of the front-runners in the race, spent a good part of his time touting his record in Wisconsin, where he survived a recall election after a very bitter fight with public employee unions.
“We need to take the power out of the special interests and put it back into the hands of the people,” Walker said.
Several others focused their ire on what they argued was an “assault” on religious liberty in the United States.
Jindal said he would have stood in support of a controversial bill that was eventually rewritten in Indiana. The bill would have allowed businesses to deny service based upon their religious beliefs.
“We’re seeing an unprincipled assault on our religious liberty in our country,” said Jindal, the governor of Louisiana.
Cruz, a Texas U.S. senator, received one of the warmest welcomes of the evening.
Cruz called upon those in the audience to “get on their knees and pray” that the U.S. Supreme Court would not legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states. He accused Democrats of trying to force their views of gay marriage upon America.
“How extreme, how sad, how radicalized has the modern Democratic Party gotten?” Cruz asked.
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, took it a step further. “We’re rapidly moving toward the criminalization of Christianity,” he said.
Many others played up their humble roots and their Christian credentials.
Rubio noted that his father was a bartender and his mother a maid, both of whom immigrated from Cuba. “America is not just the country I was born into, it is the nation that literally changed the history of my family,” said Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida.
Perry, a former governor of Texas, said he felt called to the ministry as a young man. Perry said God showed him the way as an adult.
“I knew I was supposed to go into the ministry, I never realized how large the pulpit He was going to make for me, 30 years later, as the governor of Texas,” Perry said.
Paul, whose father, Ron, is one of the nation’s most famous Libertarians, asked the crowd to nominate someone “different” this election cycle. Someone, he suggested, who isn’t afraid to tangle with Republicans.
Paul, a U.S. senator from Kentucky, noted that he has frequently failed to garner Republican support for his efforts to stop sending American dollars to countries like Pakistan.
“Countries who persecute Christians should not get one penny of our dollars,” Paul said.
Fiorina, a former CEO at Hewlett-Packard, portrayed herself as the outsider in the race. She described her lack of experience in politics as a positive and not a negative.
“When did we get used to this notion that only professional politicians could run for office?” she asked.
Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania who won the 2012 Iowa Republican caucuses, tried to position himself as the populist in the race, arguing that Republicans don’t spend enough time talking about “blue-collar conservatives.”
Santorum noted that he has supported a minimum wage hike when others in his party did not.
“We need to say we’re on the side of the American worker. We need to go out and prove it with policy,” he said.
Contact the writer: 402-444-1309, robynn.tysver@owh.com
