http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/new-faces-grab-gop-spotlight/article/2559229?utm_content=buffer0a057&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=bufferNew faces grab spotlight in 2016 GOP race
BY BYRON YORK | JANUARY 25, 2015 | 10:55 AM
DES MOINES -- The 2016 Republican race has an unprecedented number of candidates who have run for president before. In the 2008 field of a dozen candidates, just two -- the ultimate nominee, John McCain, plus Ron Paul, who ran as a libertarian in 1988 -- had run before. In 2012, two candidates -- the nominee, Mitt Romney, plus the perennial Paul -- had previously been around the track.
This time, four candidates -- Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, and Romney -- have run for the White House. In addition, another candidate, Jeb Bush, is a first-timer with a last name that's been on the presidential ballot in 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 2000, and 2004.
What was striking about the Freedom Summit, held here in Des Moines Saturday, was how little those old faces mattered. Romney and Bush didn't show up and went mostly unmentioned. And Santorum, Perry, and Huckabee failed not just to wow the crowd but to offer much evidence that they will run differently from the way they ran -- and lost -- the last time around.
"After this event, if I were a candidate who has run before -- if I were Huckabee, Santorum, those guys -- I'd be nervous, because I think the buzz coming out of this event is new faces," said Craig Robinson, creator of the influential Iowa Republican blog. "It's not the buzz from the people who have run in Iowa before and been successful here. There's a lot of interest in new people and hearing different things. I think it kind of shows that the guys who ran before, they've got to fine-tune something if they're going to compete with these new voices."
Neither Santorum nor Perry nor Huckabee showed much fine tuning. Santorum began his remarks by expressing resentment about press coverage of his 2012 campaign -- a common theme of his earlier race. "I am obviously nostalgic here," Santorum said, moving on to an anecdote about his grandfather that he used on caucus night in 2012. After that came a restatement of his '12 campaign themes.
The fundamental question for a candidate running a second time -- by definition a candidate who did not win the first time -- is what will be different in the new campaign. Santorum didn't answer that question.
Neither did Perry. His speech was mostly a rehash of 2012 ideas, delivered with more gusto than the Perry of four years ago, but otherwise not much different.
As for Huckabee, the winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses appeared nostalgic -- for Fox News. Huckabee began by telling the crowd that when he originally committed to appearing at the Freedom Summit, he was still doing a weekly program on Fox. "It was the best six and a half years of working with some of the greatest people on earth," Huckabee said, going on at some length about how happy he was at the network. Huckabee then offered some of his trademark folksiness, like this: "If you're gonna have some sausage, you've got to kill some pigs. And folks, there are a lot of people in America who want the sausage, they just don't want to kill any pigs. We need to do some pig killing, to get to the sausage." (The image is from a chapter in Huckabee's new book, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy, which explores the differences between America's coastal cities and the heartland.)
It was all delivered with Huckabee's consummate skills as a communicator, but it was not in any way new.
Contrast that with Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Ben Carson, and other new faces who gave conservatives in the hall a glimpse of a Republican Party future.
Walker walked away with the best notices. He already has the most productive record of any candidate, but was never known for electrifying audiences. On Saturday, especially in the later parts of his speech, he actually did electrify the audience.
Cruz was more polished than Walker, but he's more polished than about any other speaker anywhere. It was a Cruz kind of crowd, and he was expected to do well, but it's fair to say he lived up to already-high expectations.
For his part, Christie won praise for a heartfelt and serious presentation that defied the popular image many people have of him from YouTube videos of his more confrontational moments. Speaking earlier, Carson's remarks -- more a TED Talk than a stump speech -- did not exactly pump up the crowd but revealed a deep well of affection conservatives have for the retired surgeon. And even a complete unknown, former executive Carly Fiorina, was able to impress the crowd and leave them receptive to future Fiorina visits to Iowa.
The one thing they all had in common: They're new. They don't carry the baggage of losing campaigns of the past. Of course they share many of the fundamental beliefs of Republican candidates who have gone before, but they expressed them in new ways and in the context of different experiences. The bottom line: It's not impossible for second-time-around candidates to win the hearts of voters who have seen and heard them before, but with the quality of new faces in the 2016 race, it's going to be very, very difficult.
