With 2016 around the corner, the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) will be hosting the Sunshine Summit in Orlando from Nov. 12-Nov. 14 and the stakes will be high. The presidential hopefuls will take most of the spotlight but there’s another important race already taking shape as Rubio has said he will not run for a second Senate term. Florida Republicans Ron DeSantis, David Jolly, Carlos Lopez-Cantera and Todd Wilcox are already off and running and they will be at the Sunshine Summit trying to win support for their Senate bids.
Over the next few weeks, Sunshine State News will look at the presidential hopefuls who will be on stage at the Sunshine Summit and what is at stake as they take their messages to Republicans across Florida.
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Rick Santorum is running again for the Republican presidential nomination but this time things look far different than in his surprisingly strong bid against Mitt Romney four years ago.
Conservative alternatives to Romney came and went in the 2012 election cycle. The procession of Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michele Bachman and, finally, Newt Gingrich all had their moments before fading. Out of the limelight, Santorum, a staunch social conservative with a bit of a populist streak on economics, toiled away and it paid off for him with a narrow win over Romney in Iowa and carrying 10 other states.
Santorum is back for another try at the Republican nomination, but other candidates have leapfrogged past him to be the main conservative alternatives to the establishment choices. Even more damaging for the former senator from Pennsylvania, Mike Huckabee and, to a lesser extent, Bobby Jindal are making a play for the voters Santroum relied on in 2012.
Republicans often turn to a presidential candidate who ran before, but Santorum simply isn’t making much headway this time out. Still, he should be able to fire up social conservatives and, when he has the opportunity, can inspire them by drawing on his own personal and familial experiences. Santorum will certainly have that chance at the Sunshine Summit in Orlando as he is scheduled to kick off a series of six candidates speaking at the event on Sat. Nov. 14
Few presidential candidates in recent years have put in the hours and the work that Santorum did in 2012 and he hasn’t changed on that front. At the RPOF’s Presidency 5 event in September 2011, Santorum could be found working the hallways and lobbies more than any of the other candidates, shaking hands, posing for pictures and interacting with Florida Republicans. It paid off to some extent. While he wasn’t expected to be a contender to win the straw poll, Santorum’s fourth place showing was a little surprising as he beat out most of the other candidates. All of that was a prelude to the herculanean effort Santorum would put into Iowa, leading to a narrow win over Romney. Still, Santorum did not make much of an impression in the Florida primary, finishing a distant third behind Romney and Gingrich.
If Santorum wants to turn things around for 2016, he is going to need to put in another such effort and have a little help. Relegated to the two undercard debates with lower tier candidates, Santorum did not shine in either of them. Nor is he polling well at the national level and in key states, even those like Iowa where his 2012 supporters have left him to back other candidates.
But he has been here before, running steady as conservatives polling above him burst into the stratosphere, then came crashing back to the ground. Santorum isn’t exactly raising eyebrows with his fundraising, but that proved the case last time out as well. In the meantime, if top tier conservatives blow up, Santorum will be ready to make his move, just like in 2012, as his hard work has a chance to pay dividends. That’s Santorum’s opportunity at the Sunshine Summit and, if he does the same thing he did at Presidency 5, he can make the most of it.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
