Television personality Donald Trump, 2012 Iowa Caucus winner Rick Santorum and Texas Senator Ted Cruz are among the nearly two dozen speakers lined up for this Saturday’s “Family Leadership Summit” in Ames.
“It’s a great lineup,” says Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of The Family Leader, the group sponsoring the event. “If I wasn’t hosting this thing I’d still be going.”
The state’s top Republican elected officials — Governor Branstad, Senator Grassley and Congressman King — will speak. The event begins at 10 a.m. and isn’t scheduled to end ’til 7 p.m.
“Saturday what we’re going to do is bring conservatives together in one spot and really have teaching on why we believe what we believe — what we call world view — and then have practical application of: What does that look like?” Vander Plaats says.
Some Iowa conservatives have questioned why the twice-divorced Donald Trump was invited to the event. Vander Plaats says there are a number of reasons Trump got the invite.
“Donald Trump calls himself a conservative,” Vander Plaats cites as point number one. “Two is we’re Iowa. We’re not any other state and when you’re in Iowa you have a responsibility to introduce potential candidates to your base as well as your base to potential candidates and his message on international trade, our relationship with China, what that means to growth and opportunity in the United States and what that means to the families of this country, I think, is a very congruent message for our audience.”
Chuck Laudner, a Republican activist who worked on Santorum’s 2012 Iowa campaign, says Saturday’s event allows potential candidates like Trump and Cruz to test their message, but Laudner cautions 2016 is a long way away.
“Republicans are having a battle,” Laudner says. “You’ve got Libertarians; social conservatives — the base of the party and then you’ve got ‘The Establishment’ and there’s a big tug-of-war going on, on a lot of big issues. That’s all got to be settled and it won’t be until we pick a nominee in 2016, I’m afraid.”
According to Laudner, at this point many Republican are “throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall and waiting to see what sticks.”