So my weekly TPMCafe column was on something I also wrote about here yesterday, Rep. Steve King’s bid for presidential “kingmaker” status via an early “cattle call” event whereby hopefuls will be vetted for consistency with King’s extremist views. Given the timing, it could be a really big deal.
I’m not the only blogger calling attention to King’s event: can’t believe I’m linking to her twice in one morning, but Jennifer Rubin has called on the entire Republican presidential field to boycott the Iowa nativist’s “Freedom Summit.”
It would be a grave error for these or other Republicans to attend or to seek the stamp of approval from King, whose language and views on illegal immigrants have been so noxious as to draw rebukes from his own party. King’s infamous comments are indicative of a tiny segment of the GOP that is not only anti-illegal immigration and but anti-immigrant. There is no place in a party, especially one trying to remake its image, for remarks such as those King has uttered.
Well, King’s views are hardly breaking news, and I don’t recall Rubin getting upset when her maximum hero Mitt Romney palled around with King in 2012. Still, you have to enjoy her tactic of using Ted Cruz’s walkout at a Middle Eastern Christian event when his statements of unconditional support for Israel got him booed as a model for how Republican presidential candidates should think about their associations: she wrote after noting that Cruz had already agreed to speak at King’s hoedown.
I’d be shocked if Rubin’s boycott idea gets anywhere. King is very popular among precisely the kind of people most likely to attend the Iowa Caucuses. As I noted in my column, he could have had the Senate nomination there this year for the asking, and we’d never have learned of Joni Ernst’s hog-castrating prowess. Moreover, it’s not like King really stands out in the strange hothouse of Iowa conservatism as much as Rubin suggests:
Hopefully the candidates will reconsider going and instead, choose to attend events hosted the many mainstream conservative organizations that populate Iowa. They have their pick of pro-family, pro-life, pro-farmer and pro-business groups, so they need not attend an anti-immigrant’s shindig.
Well, the two “pro-life” and “pro-family” organizations that usually vie for holding the first GOP presidential cattle call are the local branch of Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition and then Bob Vander Plaats’ Family Leader. Steve King is tight with both those groups. Is Rubin willing to insist on boycotts of those groups, too? And will anyone listen? Don’t bet even the smallest Iowa farm on it.
