10 GOP hopefuls seek breakout moment at social conservative summit

CEDAR RAPIDS - GOP presidential hopefuls may be hoping for a breakout performance when they appear before one of the most important caucusgoing blocs - Christian conservatives - at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames Saturday.

'I'd call it a great opportunity at an early stage,” Family Leader President and CEO Bob Vander Plaats said. 'But I don't think it's make-or-break unless someone creates a make-or-break moment and I'm not sure what that would be.”

The summit at Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University, which will feature 10 of the 15 announced Republicans candidates, is expected to draw about 2,500 people general labeled 'Christian conservatives” or 'social conservatives.” They're considered a key constituency for Republican presidential hopefuls. In 2012, they accounted for nearly 60 percent of GOP caucusgoers.

'We're a very key and influential base that has a history of winning Iowa caucuses,” Vander Plaats said.

The Family Leader may win caucuses, but its views don't reflect 'anything resembling the true Iowa values of tolerance, acceptance, and prizing the rights of every citizen,” said Matt Sinovic of Progress Iowa. He predicted the audience will be 'bombarded with hate-filled rhetoric as presidential candidates pander to Vander Plaats.”

Not surprisingly, Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann disagrees and said that anytime that many candidates appear in front of that many people, it's an important event. However, he doubts it will be a game-changer. Without the traditional Iowa GOP Straw Poll, he's not sure there will be a single event that holds that potential for a candidate, especially this early in the campaign cycle,

He thinks the summit and other events through the summer and fall will have a 'culmination effect” as caucusgoers sort and select their preferred candidate.

Vander Plaats agrees that people may start to cross people off their lists after the summit.

'Typically, people leave these things saying ‘I'll take any one of them,” he said. 'I think people want to start seeing separation and whether there is someone who we can unite around.”

Vander Plaats doubts a less than stellar performance will cause any candidate to drop out of the race, 'but for those of us attending, we'll be deciding who are the two, three, four that we should give closer attention.”

That increases the need for candidates to try for a breakout moment, according to Tim Hagle, who teaches political science at University of Iowa.

'There are so many that there is no odds-on favorite,” he said, adding that all of the candidates will be trying to avoid the 'oops moment.”

It's rare that a single event is a game-changer for a candidate, said Dennis Goldford, who teaches political science at Drake University.

'On the other hand,” he said, 'Scott Walker really did have a breakout speech” at U.S. Rep. Steve King's Freedom Summit in January.

'It's not a game-decider, but a game-changer in that it put him in the top tier.” Goldford said.

It's not only the 10 candidates who will be in Ames who will come under scrutiny, but the five who aren't participating.

Candidates hate to miss an opportunity to speak to large audiences, but Hagle said some candidates might look at the Family Leader membership and decide it's not their crowd.

'But they have to be crossover candidates,” he said. 'This is a pretty strong contingent of social conservatives who show up at Republican caucuses. They are very active and active in a social way in that they talk to people at church, at school, at their kids' sports events.”

Vander Plaats definitely thinks Jeb Bush is making a mistake by skipping the event.

'This would be a real opportunity for him to extol his credentials to this base, a base that carried his dad and brother to victory,” he said. 'I don't think he wants it to be the narrative of his campaign that he's avoiding this base. He'll pay the price in February.”

However, Goldford said that despite Bush's record as one of the nation's most conservative governors when he was in office, the Family Leadership Summit 'is not a very fertile field for him to plow.”

'If he wanted to make a strong case of being a social conservative, it would be the place to do it,” Goldford said, 'but it would be a tough audience.”

The doors open at 9 a.m. and the program gets underway at 10. For more on the summit, visit https://thefamilyleadershipsummit.org/