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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Bobby Jindal is following a game plan that two of his current rivals for the Republican presidential nomination followed in 2008 and 2012: score with religious conservatives in Iowa and use a good showing in the caucus to ascend to the national level.
The Louisiana governor is showing signs of claiming a little momentum in Iowa even as Mike Huckabee, who won the caucus in 2008, and Rick Santorum, who triumphed there four years later, remain in the race. Despite working as an assistant secretary of HHS and serving in Congress, Jindal has been stressing he’s an outsider to Washington, D.C. and its dysfunction.
When he comes to the Sunshine Summit, Jindal will certainly score points with various strands of conservatives. Religious and social conservatives will find much in Jindal’s platform to cheer and few of his primary rivals are so fervent in taking on Common Core. Conservatives more concerned about national security will find Jindal to be surprisingly strong there; while he does not exactly advertise it, Jindal did serve on the Armed Forces Committee.
But Jindal has more than his share of baggage. His popularity in Louisiana has dropped considerably and Democrats have a solid chance of winning the governorship in the weeks to come. Jindal is no friend to Republican candidate David Vitter, whose own scandals have plagued him, but a GOP loss there won’t help his presidential bid. Jindal’s fundraising has been anemic, bringing in less than $580,000 in the third quarter of 2015.
At the Sunshine Summit, Jindal will take the stage in the early afternoon of Sat. Nov. 14 and he will have to overcome some perceptions. Expectations were high for Jindal when he offered the Republican response to Barack Obama’s State of the Union in 2009 but he blew the assignment. Stuck in the undercard debates with the other dark horse candidates, Jindal hasn’t exactly shined. Carly Fiorina was the undisputed victor of the first debate and Lindsey Graham was the story of the second one. Jindal has to shake off his reputation of whiffing his opportunities and a solid performance at the Sunshine Summit will help on that front.
Of all the dark horses languishing in the junior varsity debate, Jindal has the most potential to move up. He’s carving out a niche for himself in Iowa and he’s left a good if not great impression on Republicans. If Jindal has an Iowa breakthrough, he’ll need to quickly nail down support in other states meaning he has to get busy now even if he has little in the bank. The Sunshine Summit gives him just that kind of opportunity.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
