Jan. 25--REPORTING FROM DES MOINES -- The 2016 presidential contest descended en masse upon Iowa on Saturday, in a marathon bout of political speed-dating that did little to clarify the vast choices that are likely to face Republican voters over the next year.
In 20-minute bursts of staccato flirting, more than a half dozen more-or-less top tier Republican presidential possibilities paraded across a stage in a historic theatre near downtown Des Moines, their appearances interspersed with those from more than a dozen Iowa elected officials.
The nine-hour-plus sequence of blandishments -- from a cast that ranged from serious contenders to Sarah Palin and Donald Trump -- came about a year before Iowans will cast the first votes on the road to the White House, a road which for major candidates will curve through most of the 99 counties of this state before 2016 dawns.
By the exhausted end Saturday night, two things were evident: the cleavages in the party as it seeks to unify control over Washington by seizing the White House in 2016, and the gravitational pull to the right that will tempt or torment all top candidates in this state, which includes loud ranks of tea party and religious voters.
The two coalesced with repeated criticism, both blunt and shaded, of the two most prominent potential candidates not in attendance: Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. Both are viewed with differing levels of suspicion for different reasons -- Romney for his failure to win the race as the party's 2012 nominee and Bush for his embrace of education standards and immigration changes that drew repeated rebukes from the stage.
The sharpest criticism, which drew hoots of support from the audience, came from Trump, reprising his quadrennial will-he-or-won't-he-run hijinks.
"It can't be Mitt because Mitt ran and failed. You can't have Romney; he choked," said Trump, who endorsed Romney in 2012.
And, he went on, "You can't have Bush. The last thing we need is another Bush."
Trump blamed Bush's brother, former President George W. Bush, for being the man who "gave us Obama," and he criticized the former Florida governor's support for Common Core education standards and legal protection for immigrants in the country illegally.
"Remember his statement: 'They came for love,' Trump said as he mocked a past comment by Jeb Bush about immigrants entering the U.S. illegally. "Half of them are criminals; they're coming for love?"
Trump was here as entertainment -- few if any believe he would actually run -- but the reaction to his remarks suggested his sentiments were broadly shared.
The Iowa gathering, the first multi-candidate event of the caucus season, came on a busy weekend for a campaign that has flared to life with Bush's announcement in December that he was looking at running, and Romney's subsequent disclosure of his interest in a third presidential contest. This weekend in Palm Springs, conservative donors will gather for a regular meeting organized by Charles and David Koch; three prospective candidates, senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida, are scheduled to appear.
While joining in on criticism aimed at Romney and Bush, the audience for the Iowa event, organized by the Citizens United political group and conservative congressman Steve King, saved its most vocal support for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who tonally and in emphasis represented vastly different approaches. That alone suggested clashes ahead as GOP voters try to narrow the field and come to some agreement about what type of candidate they find most attractive.
Walker, the governor who faced down public employee unions and fought back against their efforts to recall him, forwarded the pitch that governors like him had enacted what he termed "common sense" policies at the state level that provided a template for a national run.
Enthusiastic but reasoned, he pointed to measures that protected gun rights, defunded Planned Parenthood, limited lawsuits and cut regulations on farms and small business. A roar arose when he noted that "we require in our state, by law, a photo ID to vote."
"That's the difference between the Wisconsin way and the Washington way," he said.
Cruz, as expected from the first-term senator who was a major force in shutting down the government in his initial months in office, was far more fiery as he repeatedly demanded, in effect, litmus tests on conservative issues.
If a candidate says he opposes President Obama's executive actions on immigration policy, "show me where you stood up and fought," he said reiterating the phrasing for a set of issues.
Conservatives need to send "the locusts of the EPA" back to Washington from the states, he said, and to abolish the IRS -- a frequent target Saturday.
"There are 110,000 employees at the IRS," he joked. "We need to padlock that building and put all of those 110,000 on our southern border."
A third approach was forwarded by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who Iowa political observers say has cultivated the state for years and built a team of supporters ready to jump in when he makes a presidential announcement.
He noted at length his antiabortion views in what appeared to be an effort to blunt any assertions that a blue-state governor was wiggly on a bedrock issue for conservative Iowa voters. He also spoke at length about the "anxiety" he found in Americans as he crossed the country in advance of the 2014 election. He tied it to stagnant incomes that have left voters uncertain about what will face their children.
"There is uncertainty in our country and it is a product of the failure of leadership," he said, adding "and that failure has happened at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. "
The courtship element of Saturday's gathering was evident in that Christie remark; he came under some criticism in 2012 for his late-campaign embrace of President Obama at a time when Romney was struggling to catch the president. (At the time, both men were working on Superstorm Sandy relief.)
But evident as well was the pressure on candidates to hew to the conservative line or, presumably, suffer when the caucuses come around. Party leaders have long sought to lower the volume on discussions that might further distance women, Latino and young voters from Republicans, a problem that haunted Romney and promises more trouble ahead as those voter groups grow.
But from the stage, there were multiple discussions of abortion -- Carly Fiorina, the 2010 California Senate candidate who is pondering a run, castigated Republicans in the House for tripping last week when they sought a ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Conservative King's presence meant that immigration was sure to come up. After the State of the Union address last week, he had criticized the president for inviting what King called a "deportable" -- that is, someone in the country without papers.
Several people bearing signs emblazoned with the word stood up and denounced the speakers' association with King during speeches by Christie and Texas Gov. Rick Perry; all were taken out of the theatre by police.
Before that, however, the emcee, radio host Jan Mickelson, set the tone when he said that immigration per se would not be a big element of the campaign.
But, he added, "What we do care about is illegal gate-crashers."
For political news and analysis, follow me on Twitter: @cathleendecker
