Will the Next President Be in Tenn. This Weekend?
March 9, 2006 — -- Would you like to get a sneak peek at the next president of the United States? You may well have a chance this weekend. You will most certainly get some insight into the post-George W. Bush Republican Party.
Nearly 2,000 Republican activists from 26 states will gather in Memphis, Tenn., starting Thursday to hear from national Republican leaders, including six potential 2008 presidential candidates at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference: Sens. John McCain, George Allen, Bill Frist, and Sam Brownback, as well as Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
It's the first "cattle call" of the 2008 cycle providing attendees a chance "to look at and hear from what the people who represent the future of the party have to offer," said the host of the big gathering, Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Bob Davis Jr.
With Bush's low poll numbers and the continued uproar over the Dubai ports deal as the backdrop, you may hear some of the potential '08 candidates carefully walk the line of distancing themselves from the president without appearing to snub him. It will be a delicate balancing act since the audience will be made up of die-hard Republican devotees who are still quite supportive of the president on nearly every issue.
Some Republican sources tell ABC News the likely places you will see some daylight between the administration and the presidential wannabes will be on federal spending and perhaps the ports controversy. (You probably won't hear too much cheerleading about the Medicare prescription drug benefit either.)
One GOP strategist cautioned that Republican White House hopefuls who distance themselves from Bush may not be employing the best strategy. "I wouldn't try in the least bit to calibrate my positions versus the president's," said Rich Galen, a former aide to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich. The potential candidates should "begin to make the case that [they] have the capability and background to be the president of the United States," Galen said.
However, Davis said that although the activists attending the event still trust Bush deeply, he doesn't "think it is necessarily a rah-rah time to circle the wagons."
"Everybody's got to be their own man or woman. You can't be something you're not and you can't ride on somebody else's coattails. I just think you have to be your own person and worry about your vision for the future and where you want to take the country," Davis advised.
Playing the Expectations Game
The National Journal's Hotline will conduct a straw poll of the hopefuls on Saturday and announce the results that night.
Despite its lack of scientific significance, the straw poll is expected to be extensively covered by the sizeable gathering of national political journalists at the conference as a reflection of a candidate's ability to organize supporters and instill some interest and passion among activists.
And the expectations game is already under way. Frist is widely seen as the candidate with the most to lose. He had a rough 2005, politically speaking, in part due to the Terri Schiavo case, and an SEC investigation, and the gathering is taking place in his home state. Frist has sent an e-mail to supporters of his political action committee urging them to attend the conference on Saturday in hopes of boosting his straw poll support.
McCain no doubt hopes to leave the weekend as he enters it -- as the perceived front-runner for his party's nomination.
In, perhaps a bit of expectations setting, Huckabee told reporters last month that he didn't intend to participate in the straw poll. However, his name, like the others who hope to succeed Bush, will appear on the ballot. Be sure to watch if a trove of Arkansans cross the border into Memphis to help Huckabee post a surprise showing and create some buzz.
Of course, a candidate doesn't always have to be pressing the flesh in-person to make a positive impression. The winner of the straw poll at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in 1998 was then-Gov. George W. Bush -- and he didn't even bother to attend the event.