GOP hopefuls test messages before social conservative

WAUKEE - The stakes were high.

'Probably one of them will turn out leading our nation,” emcee Kayne Robinson said optimistically about the nine candidates who took their turns addressing more than 1,000 social conservatives at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition's spring kickoff last night.

If one of them isn't the next president, the odds are pretty good that one of them will be the 2016 GOP nominee for president. As bad as any one of them might be, Iowa Faith & Freedom President Steve Scheffler told the members, 'your least favorite is 1,000 percent better than Hillary Clinton.

'She is every bit as bad as Barack Obama,” he said.

The coalition often is pigeonholed as being interested in only abortion and same-sex marriage, Scheffler said. But there's more on the members' minds.

'They want more than red meat,” he said. 'They have a pretty long menu.”

Mark Andersen of Sioux City agreed the gathering brought together more than evangelical Christians.

'There are Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, probably a few agnostics and secular conservatives,” he said. They share conservative philosophy and a respect for traditional family values.

Those family values 'are not Democratic family values or those of most Iowans,” state Rep. Bruce Hunter, D-Des Moines, said about the 'GOP circus.”

Specifically, Democratic family values include pay equity, raising the minimum wage, access to quality health care and recognizing same-sex marriage, Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire said.

That agenda was rejected pretty quickly at Point of Grace Church in Waukee.

Marriage, said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in the evening's first speech of the program, 'existed before government itself.” The notion of marriage being one man and one woman 'existed before our laws existed.”

Although Libertarians sometimes part ways with the Christian conservatives on social issues, they applauded when Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he was tired of Republicans retreating on abortion and protecting human life. It's Democrats, he said, who are out of step with the 84 percent of Americans who are not comfortable with third trimester abortions.

'I think we can win this argument,” Paul said. 'I'm going to push back. I'm going to keep talking about it.”

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he's done more than talk, reminding the crowd that in Texas parental notification is the law, abortion is banned after 20 weeks and a religious freedom law was passed in 1999.

In an upbeat message, Perry said it's 'time for America to be America again, and we're just a couple of good decisions away from our best years.”.”

'We lived through Jimmy Carter, we'll make it through the Obama years,” he said.

Louisiana is preparing a religious freedom law and Gov. Bobby Jindal said he won't be bullied by liberals and 'corporate America” like governors in other states.

Religious freedom, he said, is 'bigger than marriage (because) it's about the definition of freedom and liberty,” he said.

Carly Fiorina delivered perhaps the sharpest attacks on Clinton, but started with a comparison.

'Like Hillary Clinton I have traveled 1,200 miles. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, mileage is not the same as going the distance,” the former Hewlett-Packard CEO said.

As she traveled 1,222 miles in Iowa, visited more than 15 towns and talked to more than 2,400 people during the past week, Fiorina sensed 'a deep disquiet” that is neither partisan nor political.

Iowans 'fear we are losing something and we are missing something - that sense of limitless possibilities that always defined this nation,” she said.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum called for a minimum-wage increase. Only 1 percent of American workers work for minimum wage, 'and we're out there dancing on the head of a pin saying how a 50-cent or a dollar increase in the minimum wage is going to have an impact.”

'We talk about how we have to bail out Wall Street, we have to bail out auto companies, but when it comes to providing worker protection for the lowest-wage workers, we have to be Adam Smith,” he said.

In one of the strongest statement on the threat to religious liberty, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee continued his argument that the nation is moving toward the criminalization of Christianity.

'The government putting more pressure on Indiana for its religious liberty law than on Iran for wanting to build nuclear weapons 'is the ultimate of government gone wild and it's time we say no,” Huckabee said.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz also focused on religious liberty. He also was struck by the 'tremendous array” of GOP candidates.

'I'm inspired. We have governor and senators and leaders who are standing and ready to fight,” Cruz said. 'On the other side they have Hillary Clinton and the clerk at Chipotle.”

Gov. Scott Walker, who said he's been sustained by prayer, touted Wisconsin's defunding of Planned Parenthood, pro-life legislation and the 'castle doctrine” so citizens can defend themselves, their loved one and property. He also talked about ending seniority and tenure so teachers can be hired and fired on merit, and expanding school choice, balancing the budget and lowering unemployment.

He didn't lay out his accomplishment to brag, Walker said, 'but to tell you that if it can happen in a blue state like Wisconsin it can happen anywhere” – even nationally.

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