Red meat abounded at Rep. Steve King's Iowa "freedom"* summit over the weekend (*excepting gays, immigrants, and women—no freedom for them).
The people who had the most to lose were likely New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, unless you really think Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have a shot at winning anything other than the GOP Iowa caucus only to tank in the general. If you believe that, add Sarah Palin to your list because, yes, she's "seriously interested" in a 2016 candidacy. (Brace yourself for more Palin below.)
As for Christie, King boosted his chances to appeal to a younger generation of voters by praising the fact that he vetoed New Jersey's marriage equality law. Just call him the "anti-luv guv"—it's a slam dunk for wooing millennials.
Here's some other highlights from James Hohmann of Politico.
Chris Christie is pro-life, anti-women enough to win Iowa, and America for that matter.
“The notion that our party must abandon the sanctity of life to compete in blue states is simply not true, and I am living proof of that fact,” he said. After referring to the crowd as “patriots,” Christie added: “If you want a candidate who agrees with you 100 percent of the time, go home and look in the mirror.”
Sounds like a revival of the Straight Talk Express. So fitting for the anti-luv guv.
More fun awaits below the fold.
Rick Santorum is just plain sad.
A late surge allowed Rick Santorum to narrowly win the 2012 caucuses, but on Saturday he delivered one of the flattest speeches of the day, leaning heavily on nostalgia for the last race. Many in the crowd were checking their phones as he called on Republicans to do more for the working class.
So much for Iowa's big 2012 victor.
Scott Walker's got game because he's the son of a poor pastor and still bargain hunts at Kohl's to this day. Dreamy.
“We didn’t know it then, but we were kind of poor,” he said, adding that he still shops for bargains at Kohl’s department store.
Oh, and he's successfully undermined the rights of women, minorities, and legalized carrying weapons to, well, anywhere one might want to have a little "High Noon" extravaganza.
Walker noted that he defunded Planned Parenthood, pushed through voter ID and enacted concealed-carry gun laws. The crowd ate it up.
But no one's as dreamy as Ted Cruz, who reminded the crowd that "talk is cheap." He's all action.
"Talk is cheap," he said of his fellow Republicans. He then drew from the Bible—as he did elsewhere in the speech—saying, "The Word tells us, 'You will know them by their fruit.'" Many in the audience knowingly murmured the words along with him.
"Show me where you stood up and fought," Cruz challenged potential rivals on issue after issue, from Obamacare to gay marriage to the Common Core education standards.
Shutting down the government, by the way, is Cruz's only accomplishment in Congress. Building on that success, he's now assembling a "grassroots army in Iowa and all across the country."
Cruz instructed his cheering audience to send a text message with the word "Constitution" to the number 33733. Iowans all over the auditorium could be seen whipping out their cell phones and punching keys.
Uncle Ted's just a text away.
Jeb Bush was the summit's biggest winner cuz he didn't attend and Iowa Republicans hate him—that means he might be just sane enough for the general public.
As uneasy as attendees seemed with another Bush, there was open disdain for the Common Core education guidelines that he champions. The program came up dozens of times, always in a negative light. In the face of a grass-roots revolt, the former Florida governor has publicly declared that he won’t back down from his vocal support of the program, which many conservatives now call “ObamaCore” because it’s backed by the U.S. Department of Education.
Bill O’Brien, the former speaker of the New Hampshire state House, asked why the GOP would back a guy who likes Common Core and has a familiar name. “Are we going to do that again?” he said in a speech. “No!” the crowd yelled.
And the biggest loser … wait for it … one Ms. Sarah Palin! Who else?
Poor thing, she had a teleprompter malfunction and was reduced to spewing the gibberish that fills her head. How bad was it? Even the Iowa party faithful stopped clapping and started "scratching their heads," reports Adam Edelman.
“'The man can only ride you when your back is bent,” Palin said — one in a series of unusual one-liners she ad libbed after her teleprompter froze. “So strengthen it! Then the man can't ride you, America won't get taken for a ride, because so much is at stake.”
“What will they do to stop causing our pain and start feeling it again” she said in a short rant over Obamacare. “Well, in other words, um — Is Hillary a new Democrat or an old one?”
Oh man, you can't pay for entertainment like that.