First Posted: 4/3/2015
WASHINGTON — The 2016 Republican presidential candidates figure that to win the party’s nomination, they have to get cozy with hard-core conservatives.
But to win the general election, they have to move away from that same constituency.
It’s a quadrennial predicament that’s bedeviled Republican White House hopefuls since the rise of the Moral Majority and the Christian right 35 years ago. Those interest groups are powerful and persistent, committed to a mission that would recast the party as God-fearing champions of limited government and individual freedom.
Government shutdowns, responsible gun use and lower taxes don’t trouble them. Abortions, Obamacare and undocumented immigrants do. The percentage of Republicans who identify as conservative has risen from 62 percent in 2000 to 70 percent in 2014, according to Gallup. Public Policy Polling, a left-leaning firm, last month found that 57 percent of Republicans would support establishing Christianity as the nation’s official religion.
“If the evangelical influence just swept across the nation there would be a lot fewer taxes, a lot less need for police forces, a lot fewer drug rehabilitation workers,” Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told McClatchy in an interview. “That’s how the world would be a better place.”
The party may have gained big majorities in Congress last year, but the die-hards aren’t satisfied.
“Republicans are in the majority, but conservatives are not,” lamented Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.
The die-hards won’t be easily assuaged. They pack candidate town halls, donate money and provide the manpower for early presidential efforts. Candidates must either toe their line or get tagged as weak.
That’s why 2016 top-tier candidates are trying mightily to maintain their appeal to that constituency while trying to avoid saying or doing anything that could haunt them in a general election campaign.
Walker the talker
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is at or near the top of most early polls among Republicans, likes to boast how he stuck to conservative principles to win statewide office three times in a centrist state.
“To win the center, you don’t have to go to the center, you have to lead,” he said during a Tea Party Patriots telephone town hall.
Tea party loyalists are still somewhat wary of Walker, though, because of past positions on immigration and government support for ethanol, a big issue in Iowa, site of the nation’s first caucus.
In 2006, he said during his gubernatorial campaign that “we as conservatives should oppose” federal ethanol requirements. But at the Iowa Ag Summit this month, he said he was “willing to go forward” with federal standards.
Tea Party Patriots president Jenny Beth Martin asked Walker why he switched his position. Walker said his position was consistent, explaining that he wants the standard phased out but would not end it right away.
Immigration test
Immigration is also proving a difficult hurdle. Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are all viewed with suspicion because they have been sympathetic to paths to legalization or citizenship for immigrants living in the United States without documentation.
Rubio and Walker now say they want border security first before they’ll consider dealing with those in this country. Bush backs a path to legalization.
The latest immigration test came last month, when congressional Republicans tried to overturn President Barack Obama’s November executive action protecting millions of people from deportation. Republicans wanted to tie Department of Homeland Security funding to repealing Obama’s decision.
They failed, but 167 House and 31 Senate Republicans voted against funding the agency with no strings attached. Among them was Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a conservative favorite. Seventy-five House Republicans and 23 Senate Republicans voted yes.
Cruz said funding the department without restraining Obama on immigration was a big mistake.
“Congress is obliged to use every constitutional check and balance we have to rein in President Obama’s lawlessness,” he protested in a news release.
Graham disagreed. “What some people say is conservative is just unwise choices,” he told McClatchy in an interview. “I don’t think it’s conservative to defund the DHS at a time when the threat levels to our nation are so high.”
As a governor, Walker didn’t have to vote. But he’s under fire for signing a 2002 Milwaukee Board of Supervisors resolution endorsing “legislation that will provide greater opportunity for undocumented working immigrants to obtain legal residency in the United States.”
Earlier this month, Walker told “Fox News Sunday,” “My view has changed. I’m flat-out saying it. … Look at the problems we’ve experienced for the last few years.”
Good ‘n’ bad
Conservatives are watching closely and so far, none of the top contenders has much appeal.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky wins plaudits for his libertarian approach and his skepticism about foreign intervention. But his support for military action against the Islamic State has alienated some conservatives.
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson is drawing a sizable following but not showing much mainstream appeal. Ditto Cruz, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.
In a March 1-4 McClatchy-Marist poll, Walker got about one-fourth of the vote of very conservative voters. Huckabee and Carson were next, tied at 19 percent. No else got more than 7 percent.
Huckabee’s standing illustrates the problem conservatives face. He won the 2008 Iowa Republican caucus easily. But five days later, among the center-right Republicans of New Hampshire, he sank to third place with 11 percent. When he lost to Sen. John McCain of Arizona in the South Carolina primary 11 days after that, he was finished.
That memory lingers among Republicans. They see a good chance to win the White House in 2016 _ after all, only once since World War II ended has the same political party won the presidency three straight times. Walker, Bush, Paul and Rubio all held Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton under 50 percent in this month’s McClatchy-Marist poll.
But if they look too beholden to the right, they could face trouble. Walker, Bush and Rubio are all getting about 37-38 percent of the independent vote, and in a close race, those independents are the ones who are likely to determine who wins the White House.
