Republicans vying for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016 auditioned Thursday before some of the nation’s most ardent conservative leaders, calling for the party to unite behind a clear agenda and draw contrasts with Democrats.
Thursday’s speakers included Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
“If you want to lose elections, stand for nothing,” said Cruz, who referred as examples to the unsuccessful presidential bids of Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney. “When you don’t stand and draw a clear distinction, when you don’t stand for principle, Democrats celebrate.”
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference offered an early tryout of sorts for a half-dozen Republican officials eager to win over the GOP’s most passionate voters.
At stake this year is the Senate majority, currently held by senators in President Barack Obama’s party. But for all, the midterm elections could serve as a springboard for the next presidential contest.
Republicans have much to mend before 2016, starting with a stark ideological divide between the party’s establishment and the super-conservatives who rose to power in the tea party-fueled 2010 elections that delivered a Republican House majority. Fiscal crises, compromises and a war of words have separated the factions from the top down despite widespread agreement that Obama’s signature health care law should be overturned.
More than two years out from the election to succeed Obama, there’s no clear front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination. But Republicans interested in the job filed across the CPAC stage at a hotel complex just down the Potomac River from Washington — bashing the media, criticizing Obama and making a case for being the candidate who can win the White House.
For Christie, the event was the first major step back into the national spotlight and a chance to revive his image from a political retribution scandal in which his aides ordered the closing of lanes near New Jersey’s George Washington Bridge. Federal authorities also are investigating allegations that two members of Christie’s Cabinet threatened to withhold storm recovery funds from heavily flooded Hoboken if the city’s mayor didn’t approve a favored redevelopment project.
Before the conservative crowd, the Republican governor ignored his administration’s recent troubles and showed flashes of the fighting spirit that has defined his political career. Christie won a standing ovation after a 15-minute speech in which he declared: “We have to stop letting the media define who we are and what we stand for.”
Rubio criticized Obama’s global leadership, saying the president thought he could shape global events in places such as North Korea, Iran and Ukraine “through the sheer force of his personality” and by giving speeches around the world.
“We cannot ignore that the flawed foreign policy of the last few years has brought us to this stage,” Rubio said, adding that the U.S. was the one nation that could “stand up to the spread of totalitarianism … The United Nations cannot do this.”
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, trying to stare down a tea party primary challenge from businessman Matt Bevin in Kentucky, arrived on stage holding a rifle aloft, then presented it to retiring Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a favorite of conservatives who received the National Rifle Association’s “Courage Under Fire” lifetime achievement award.
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The conservative conference comes less than a year after the Republican National Committee released a comprehensive plan to broaden the GOP’s appeal after a disappointing 2012 election season.
The GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, downplayed intraparty divisions as “creative tension” and urged conservative activists to “give each other the benefit of the doubt” in the debate over the party’s future.
“We, your representatives, we have to earn this benefit of the doubt,” Ryan said. “We have to offer a vision. We have to explain where we want to take the country and how we’re going to get there.”
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