Following a lackluster debate performance, Jeb Bush admitted he must do better, and he showed signs of life at the Iowa GOP’s festival-styled candidate forum. But Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the man many say Bush must distance himself from, ceded little, if any, ground.
Chris McLinden, Bush’s Dallas County leader, said he was very impressed with Bush’s performance Oct. 31.
“I’m more pumped up now than ever,” McLinden said. “He had a tough week, and everybody knows that.”
The Iowa Republican Party hosted the first-ever Growth and Opportunity Party on Oct. 31, attracting 10 Republican presidential candidates and roughly 2,000 people at the Varied Industries Building at the State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.
The event gave each candidate 15 minutes on stage along with booth space in which attendees were free to roam and eat lots of Halloween candy.
Common Core zombies and a scarecrow topped with a Hillary Clinton mask were not unusual sightings at the forum.
Coming from a rocky debate performance, Bush came energized and with revamped talking points.
He told the crowd he wouldn’t bore them with “nerdy” policy information — which he used as a gimmick for urging people to go to his website — but he pushed his anti-abortion stance and even included subtle jabs at his Republican competitors.
“Poll numbers, they go up and they go down,” he said. “But when they go down, you don’t insult Iowa voters — you learn from Iowa voters — it is a joy to be here.”
Bush was referencing businessman Donald Trump’s reaction to being overtaken by neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the latest Iowa polls.
The former Florida governor continuing to hammer home that longtime friend and one-time protégé Rubio saying he needs to stop missing U.S. Senate votes during the campaign. Only this time Bush doubled-down with an added Iowa dig.
“You know what? If you’re elected to serve, you should do what Chuck Grassley does. You should show up and vote,” Bush said.
Grassley is well known for having not missed a vote since the early 1990s. The comparison has added importance when taking into account Iowa’s 2014 Senate election, said former Iowa GOP head Matt Strawn.
“If you are going to try to draw comparison, you might as well be consistent and stick to your guns,” Strawn said.
Strawn who worked with closely with then state Sen. Joni Ernst, whose campaign used missed votes and hearings as bludgeon against an already weakened then-Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa. What was once thought of as an easy Democratic pickup soon became one of the high marks of a GOP wave that led Republicans to take back the U.S. Senate.
Coming off a strong performance in the Wednesday night Republican presidential debate on CNBC, Rubio stuck largely to a stump speech that veered little away from what he told supporters in Miami when he announced his run in April.
Chiefly, he emphasized how his status as a U.S. senator born to Cuban exile parents would only be possible in a place the United States — but such an opportunity is, in Rubio’s eyes, increasingly in doubt.
Despite the usual lines, Rubio enjoyed some of the largest reaction of the day. Like other popular candidates the 44-year-old was swarmed after his speech as the senator struggled to make his way to the booth amidst a mass of supporters.
Echoing what many Iowa Republicans have said, party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said many remain undecided about their choice for the Feb. 1 caucuses that are now fewer than 100 days away.
