Lots of Choices
The Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition this week announced its 23rd annual “Spring Kick-Off” dinner…it’s called “A Road to Victory” and it will be on April 22nd in the Des Moines area…tickets are $60 per person, and includes a Chick-fil-A buffet dinner.
It also includes possible 2024 Republican presidential candidates, and in that vein, the group announced the twenty possible candidates they have invited to speak…in alphabetical order, they are:
Gov. Greg Abbott
Amb. John Bolton
Gov. Chris Christie
Sen. Ted Cruz
Gov. Ron DeSantis
Gov. Nikki Haley
Gov. Larry Hogan
Rep. Will Hurd
Gov. Asa Hutchinson
Businessman Perry Johnson
Gov. Kristi Noem
Sen. Rand Paul
Vice President Mike Pence
Secretary Mike Pompeo
Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy
Sen. Marco Rubio
Sen. Tim Scott
President Donald Trump, and
Gov. Glen Youngkin
Some of those on the list have run for president before, so there’s a thought they might again—whether now or in the future. Others have already visited Iowa multiple times. A few are frankly long-shots, but this is Iowa and we like shaking up conventional wisdom with our caucuses.
Hard to say how many of the 20 will attend. A few—in my view, Trump and DeSantis for sure—will not attend, to not give the so-called lesser candidates elevation to their level. A few may opt out of the race before the event; for example, Hogan now says he won’t run. Others who are dancing around it now are sure to run, so I bet Scott, Pompeo and Pence will be glad to greet this audience. But it will be interesting to see who in the “middle” does show up…I’m looking in particular at Noem and Christie…because it may show how serious they are about tossing their hats in the ring this time.
It’s Iowa, less than a year before the Caucus…here we go.
