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Potential GOP 2016 contenders, clockwise from top left: Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.(Photo: AP)
A gaggle of potential Republican presidential candidates will pitch their 2016 credentials this week at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, but they'll find a new wrinkle at the best-known of GOP cattle calls.
Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie and others will for the first time have to answer questions from the audience, made up of the GOP's most conservative and libertarian activists.
CPAC organizers are trying to make this command performance for presidential hopefuls a tougher vetting process than just doing well in the annual straw poll — a kind of informal job interview for undeclared candidates
"I do believe this is when the gun goes off'' for the Republican nomination contest, says Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC. "They all want the conservative mantle and part of this conference is going to be hearing their pitch.'' The conference convenes Wednesday in a Washington, D.C., suburb, with headline speeches beginning Thursday morning.
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The CPAC audience is young and with a libertarian skew: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has won the straw poll two years in a row and his father, former congressman Ron Paul, won in 2010 and 2011.
"If you really are going for the White House, understand that these folks need to be with you. You need to connect with them,'' says Keith Appell, a communications strategist and veteran of campaigns for Steve Forbes, Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey.
The Republican Party is making efforts to limit the amount of intra-party savaging by limiting the number of presidential primary debates and holding its convention a month earlier.
"There are lots of people who want (Republicans) to settle on the (leading) candidate sooner,'' compared to the flavor-of-the-month approach of the 2012 primaries, Schlapp says. His concern: "important and influential Republicans would settle on a nominee too soon, and there wouldn't be enough time for voters to see how they react when they're asked questions.''
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In the rivalry between grass-roots and establishment Republicans, CPAC is where the grass-roots gets a shot. "If a front-runner emerges, let's make sure that front-runner has had to run the gauntlet of CPAC,'' Schlapp says.
That should be fun for Jeb Bush, who supports a comprehensive immigration overhaul and Common Core educational standards, two issues on which the GOP is increasingly divided. Similarly, Christie has also supported Common Core and expanded Medicaid in New Jersey after the Affordable Care Act was passed, not to mention his brief bromance with President Obama in 2012 after Superstorm Sandy.
On divisive issues like immigration and Common Core, "Republicans have to stop acting like pregnant teenagers who say,'I'm just going to ignore it and it will go away,' " says Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway. "You might as well confront it while you have an open mike … in front of thousands of activists.''
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Conway, who is on the board of the American Conservative Union that sponsors CPAC, says Bush and Christie should jump in with both feet. "If Jeb Bush says, 'here's what I meant when I said illegal immigration is an "act of love" ' and says 'here's my four-point plan on what I would do as president,' you will hear a pin drop."
"Jeb will do fine,'' says Ana Navarro, the GOP consultant who is a Bush supporter. "The crowd will see that he answers questions directly and truthfully. We've seen in his recent question-and-answer session that he's authentic and keeps it real. I think the CPAC crowd will appreciate that.''
Be specific, says Jenny Beth Martin, a Tea Party leader and regular CPAC speaker, "What we want to hear ... is not just them saying they support the values that we share or the issues we want,'' she says. "If they're thinking about running for president they should have a plan for how to address these problems. These problems aren't new. We've had six years.''
And be real, Appel says. In 2012, Mitt Romney told the CPAC audience he was "severely conservative.'' He struggled for the rest of the campaign to persuade grass-roots voters that was true.
"He was never able to overcome the subtext of a lack of authenticity,'' Appel says. "It never sold and it was a harbinger of things to come."
Not only candidates will be vetted at CPAC. Gregory T. Angelo of the group Log Cabin Republicans will appear on a panel to discuss Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the first time the group of gay Republicans has been officially included in the conference. A 2013 panel on same-sex marriage with a representative of GOProud, another group of gay Republicans, was not considered an official CPAC event.
Appearing on the panel is a chance for the Log Cabin group to show it is engaged in "the full spectrum of Republican issues,'' Angelo says, before activists "who are perhaps dubious of our own conservative bona fides or are suspicious of us as the 'gay marriage Republicans.' ''
He sees little appetite for a discussion of same-sex marriage at CPAC this year. "I don't know who will say what at CPAC but I think there is at least a consensus among Republicans that when we lost in 2012 it was because there was an inordinate focus on social issues.''
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