Republican presidential candidates roast Biden at Hinson BBQ Bash

CEDAR RAPIDS — Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson fiddled on her violin with a four-piece band, playing a series of country tunes as attendees piled coleslaw, baked beans and pulled pork onto paper plates, while a slate of Republican presidential candidates worked the room.

Seven candidates running for the 2024 GOP nomination addressed several hundred at Hinson’s annual BBQ Bash political fundraiser at Hawkeye Downs Speedway & Expo Center in Cedar Rapids Sunday.

The lineup featured Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Ohio biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, conservative talk radio host and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder and Michigan businessman Perry Johnson.

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and Iowa Republican U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and fellow Iowa GOP U.S. Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn also joined Hinson on stage.

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“The reason we’re in this fight is because the radical left has declared war on middle America and our values,” Hinson said. “They have opened up our Southern border. They have spent trillions of dollars we don’t have. They have let criminals out onto our streets and they turned our schools into woke indoctrination centers,” while ignoring kitchen table issues of inflation, a bulging federal deficit, border security and the flow of illicit fentanyl into the United States.

“But, we’re not going to sit on the sidelines as Joe Biden destroys our country,” Hinson said to cheers.

Hinson, too, said she “will not stand for the politicization of our justice system under President Joe Biden” — a reference to the third criminal case brought against former President and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump in less than six months.

Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday to trying to overturn the results of his 2020 presidential election loss.

Ron DeSantis

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told the crowd he has a track record of delivering conservative wins — from enacting universal school choice legislation and a strict abortion ban, to expanding Second Amendment rights and banning the instruction of “critical race theory and gender ideology” in K-12 schools.

“We banned sanctuary cities and sent troops to the border in Texas, and even transporting illegal aliens to beautiful Martha’s Vineyard,” the Florida governor said.

DeSantis pledged, if elected, to put the military on the U.S.-Mexico border, build the border wall and authorize the use of “deadly force” against Mexican drug cartels.

“They are going to end up stone-cold dead at the Southern Border,” DeSantis said.

Doug Burgum

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North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said his campaign will focus on the economy, energy and national security.

Burgum emphasized his small-town and blue-collar roots, telling the crowd Washington, D.C.,“needs more small-town values.”

“What we know is the prices for all of you are up 17 to 30 percent more than two years ago, and we know incomes haven’t risen that fast,” he said. “We’re all worse off than we were two years.”

Burgum asserted Biden’s energy policy represents an attack on biofuels, ethanol, oil and gas.

“We would be trading our future to China,” he said of the country’s control over the market for processing and refining rare Earth minerals used in EVs, solar panels, and other renewable energy technologies.

Perry Johnson

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Michigan businessman Perry Johnson made his signature pitch to cut 2 percent each year from the federal discretionary budget. He said the results would erode the federal debt and lower taxes for Americans.

"I am pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, anti-woke, anti-China, and I am pro-freedom,“ Johnson told the crowd.

He called for dismantling the U.S. Department of Education and said he would ban gender-affirming “transition therapy” for transgender youth.

Vivek Ramaswamy

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Ohio entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said a conservative American identity could fill what he called a void of meaning in American culture.

Ramaswamy, 37, told the crowd that his generation of Millennials is “starved of purpose, meaning and identity.”

“Things that used to fill that hunger — faith, patriotism, hard work, family — these things have disappeared and leaves a black hole, a moral vacuum in its wake,” he told the crowd.

That, he said, is what has allowed the “poison” of “wokeism, transgenderism, climatism, covidism, globalism, ” to fester.

Larry Elder

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Larry Elder said he was running to bring attention to the “epidemic of fatherlessness” in America and address what he called failing schools in America’s inner cities. Those issues, he said, are not talked about enough in the Republican Party.

Elder said that the lack of a male father figure in a child’s life can lead them to a life of crime, and poverty.

A 2003 study by the University of Pennsylvania Sociology professor Jennifer Schwartz found that fatherlessness is linked to a rise in crime for adolescents.

The National Center for Fathering, a national nonprofit focused on the impact of fatherlessness in America, found that fatherlessness is linked to poverty with 44 percent of mother-only households living in poverty, according to 2011 U.S. Census Bureau data.

“We've incentivized women to marry the government — we’ve incentivized men to abandon their financial and moral responsibilities.”

Asa Hutchinson

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Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson attacked Biden for “failed policies” on border security, the economy, energy policy and the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Hutchinson, a former congressman, U.S. prosecuting attorney and head of the Drug Enforcement Administration under George W. Bush administration, said if elected he would pursue a “pro-growth energy policy” and “will be a pro-life president.”

He argued the Biden administration has “diminished respect for the rule of law in our country.” He pledged to reform federal law enforcement.

“I’m running for president because I can bring change and I have the experience to address the challenges we have, and I know America has its greatest days ahead,” Hutchinson said.

Nikki Haley

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Nikki Haley, who served under former President Donald Trump as ambassador to the United Nations, sounded an alarm on national security.

Haley strayed from other candidates at the event on Sunday, focusing on national security and foreign policy instead of domestic issues.

Haley criticized the Biden administration's foreign aid packages, rebuking the president for aid to China, Pakistan, and Cuba which Haley considers adversaries.

“But now I want you to think about the biggest national security threat that we face, and that's China,” Haley said. “China has been planning war with the United States for years.”

Haley also said she would strengthen the military by ending “woke” practices employed by the Biden administration including pronoun usage, and paying for service members to seek abortion care out of state.

“We will build up our military. A strong military doesn't start wars — a strong military prevents wars,” Haley said. “We'll pull down the bureaucracy, the red tape, we will stop favoritism when it comes to defense projects and we will make sure our military is strong and ready and protected.”

What voters had to say

Tom Robinson, a Cedar Rapids native, said he was looking to support any conservative that can beat Joe Biden at the campaign event on Sunday afternoon.

Robinson voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, but is more skeptical about Trump’s ability to beat Joe Biden in a general election contest. Robinson said he is looking for a, “fiscal conservative that can stand up to Joe Biden,” in a 2024 Republican nominee.

However, he said, he still supports the former president despite his continuing legal troubles — in fact, he said, the legal troubles embolden his support for Trump.

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Not all Republicans at Hinson’s barbecue bash Sunday were supportive of the former president.

George Justice and his wife Beth, of Cedar Rapids, haven’t decided who they will support for the Republican nomination for president.

George, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, said Trump’s recent bouts of legal trouble are “a disgrace,” leading him and his wife to look for alternatives. They are waiting to see who will make it to the Iowa’s caucuses next year, but are keeping an eye on Ramaswamy.

Gail Jolar, a Cedar Rapids resident, said Trump’s abrasive behavior and “bullying” tactics have turned her away from the former president, who won her vote in 2016 and 2020,

This time around, Jolar said she wants to learn more about Ramaswamy, who she’s watched on television and cable news. Jolar said Ramaswamy’s personality, charm and intellect caught her attention.

Democrats respond

Iowa state Rep. Sami Scheetz, D-Cedar Rapids, slammed DeSantis and the majority of the GOP primary field for their unwillingness to criticize the main flaws of Trump’s candidacy — “and that’s that he threatened American democracy.”

“As Democrats, we are really committed to protecting democracy, to protecting the rule of law,” Scheetz told The Gazette ahead of Sunday’s event. “ … Unfortunately, top Republican candidates for president are doing the exact opposite.”

Scheetz, too, attacked the Republican candidates for pushing what he called a “right-wing agenda” mirrored in legislation passed this year by the GOP-led Iowa Legislature.

Scheetz defended President Biden’s economic policies. Inflation is receding, unemployment is at or near record lows and the U.S. economy is growing at a solid pace, he said.

However, Americans are deeply pessimistic about the economy and Fitch Ratings last week downgraded its U.S. debt rating, citing “a steady deterioration in standards of governance … that has manifested in repeated debt-limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions."

Scheetz acknowledge Iowans are still feeling “real economic pain,” but asserted legislation signed into law by Biden to combat climate change, invest in rebuilding the country’s broken infrastructure and boost U.S. manufacturing “will pay dividends for American workers.”

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com