That Christie’s comparatively moderate position might turn out a liability for the candidate in a Republican primary was made even more clear on Saturday, when the summit’s more doggedly conservative headliners used Christie, Bush, and Romney as punching bags in their speeches, all to raucous applause.īut where does Christie actually fall on that conservative ideological spectrum? Out of more than a dozen potential candidates whose political orientations run the conservative gamut, from Texas Sen.
Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, one of a few token moderates in the crowd. And that was especially true for Christie, an establishment candidate who finds himself, along with former Govs.
The summit, experts say, was a classic cattle call, featuring nominees competing over a devout Republican audience with carefully-crafted conservative rhetoric that often times puts them further right on the ideological spectrum that their actual records indicate. In a speech at the end of the day-long event, the incumbent governor presented himself as an honest conservative from the Garden State, smacked at “some imperial president” Barack Obama, and outlined a panoramic pro-life agenda that concerns itself as much with drug rehab as it does with life at conception.įor close followers of the incumbent governor, it was a slightly unfamiliar rendition of the Christie they’ve come to know - who during his own tenure as governor has shown himself to be a pragmatic politician not beyond entering into a physical embrace of that “imperial president” on his home turf, or shifting his stance on abortion when politically convenient. Like the rest of the GOP hopefuls in attendance, Christie used the summit as an opportunity to make initial appeals to a national caucus, and, by extension, distinguish himself in a field of contenders that is already turning out to be one of the most crowded in Republican primary history. Chris Christie, the enterprising moderate from New Jersey who some consider a frontrunner for the nomination. Steven King’s annual “Iowa Freedom Summit.” The first major gathering of the party ahead of the 2016 cycle - and the unofficial “kickoff” of the Republican primaries - the event was attended by a handful of the dozen prospective presidential candidates currently said to be weighing bids for the nomination. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)Ĭonservative voters got an early glimpse of what 2016’s Republican presidential primary races might look like this weekend when leading GOP figures from across the county flocked to Des Moines, Iowa for U.S. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaks to guests at the Iowa Freedom Summit on Januin Des Moines, Iowa.
0 kommentar(er)
