AP Photos GOP preps as Christie stumbles

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio spent the past year getting battered over immigration reform — and building a presidential-level political operation with heavy investments in digital and data analytics. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has already visited New York City four times this year, pushing into big-money turf once dominated by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, has gamed out his 2016 options with a small team of longtime advisers, while Indiana Gov. Mike Pence has met with prominent conservatives, urging him to consider the race.

The Republican presidential field is aflutter with behind-the-scenes activity even at this preliminary stage, giving early shape to a race that has been defined in public by a handful of outsized media personalities, including Christie, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.


Christie’s “Bridgegate” stumbles have now thrown the race wide open: Strategists for likely and potential candidates all see the Garden State Republican as deeply and perhaps fatally compromised. Reform-minded Republican governors are eyeing the race more eagerly, thanks to the void opened by the Fort Lee traffic scandal. Others in the field, like Rubio, could find their nuts-and-bolts preparatory work all the more valuable in view of Christie’s woes.

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There is no shortage of ideological and strategic fault lines in the Republican lineup, but the most important developing division may be the one separating these two groups of candidates: the prepared and the unprepared.

In 2012, Mitt Romney survived a savage primary contest, largely because of his financial and organizational dominance. With 2016 looming closer, several presumptive candidates, including Rubio and Jindal, have already moved ahead of the pack in what might be called the infrastructure primary; other promising hopefuls, like Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, look powerful on paper but have done little to capitalize on their promise.

Experienced GOP presidential hands have so far taken a “let a thousand flowers bloom” approach to the 2016 maneuvering. “While each is following a unique strategy to ramp up their operations, I’m particularly struck by Bobby Jindal’s aggressive outreach and early organizing, Rand Paul’s smart messaging on privacy and organizational strength and Marco Rubio’s discipline at playing the long game,” said Jim Merrill, Mitt Romney’s former New Hampshire strategist.

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Romney’s Iowa campaign chief, David Kochel, said the flurry of Republican activity contrasts with the minimal movement on the Democratic side. “Whether it’s Jeb Bush on education, or Marco Rubio on foreign policy, or Rand Paul on NSA, they’re looking for and finding opportunities to grow the base,” he said.

Here’s a closer look at the first stages of the invisible primary — POLITICO’s guide to the organized, the partially organized and the just plain disorganized Republicans of 2016.

Staffed up and ready to go

If the 2016 starter’s pistol fired tomorrow, at least a few contenders would be able to jump into action almost immediately. Marco Rubio, now halfway through his first Senate term, has surrounded himself with presidential-level strategists and policy advisers from the outset. His political operation is run by South Carolina operative Terry Sullivan, while the Rubio PAC Reclaim America brought on former Bush-Cheney and Fred Thompson fundraiser Dorinda Moss to manage the money flow.

A closer look at Rubio’s finance reports reveal an even more sophisticated operation at work. In addition to several vendors long associated with Rubio — the TV firm Something Else Strategies and the pollsters at North Star Opinion Research — Rubio has paid hefty sums to more specialized political consultants, including $150,000 to the Republican data analytics firm 0ptimus. Also working for Rubio is digital consultant Mike Harinstein, a former Americans for Prosperity digital guru now at the firm Core Focus Consulting.

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And Rubio’s political machine isn’t just waiting for the “go” order. Reclaim America ran TV ads last year for Arkansas Senate candidate Tom Cotton and New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, while his pollster was paid for multiple surveys. If Rubio runs, he’ll have plenty more hiring to do — especially in the early states — but the core of his national operation is perhaps the strongest in the field.

Giving Rubio an early run for his organizational money is Bobby Jindal, who has formed two independent groups to push his national message: a federal PAC, dubbed Stand up to Washington, and the policy nonprofit America Next.

Like Rubio, he has a core set of consultants experienced in presidential politics. They include the pollsters and ad men at OnMessage Inc., a Virginia-based firm that has worked for Jindal for a decade and employs former Jindal campaign manager Timmy Teepell.

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And the Louisiana governor has been aggressively courting national finance types, making four trips to New York City in this calendar year to compete on turf where Christie was once the overwhelming favorite, as well as trips to other major cities, like Chicago.

Neither Rubio nor Jindal has caught fire in the earliest rounds of horse-race polling, a reality that supporters say counts for little this far out.

Not that long ago, the third man with an almost-turnkey 2016 operation would have been Chris Christie — the high-profile Republican Governors Association chairman with multiple former Romney 2012 advisers in his kitchen cabinet, Rudy Giuliani’s former campaign manager, Mike DuHaime, as his top strategist and a pack of donors pounding on the door to pay respects. When the Fort Lee traffic scandal erupted — prompting Christie to sever ties with his former campaign manager, Bill Stepien — any 2016 preparations were essentially frozen in time.

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Christie continues to tour the country in his RGA capacity. He has been to Florida and Michigan, and later this month he is slated to attend a major donor event in Deer Park, Utah, according to a source familiar with the planning. But if events like these give Christie the chance to make the case for his own relevance, strategists privately wonder whether the bloom is permanently off the rose. (“He’s lost the thing that made him special,” said one veteran GOP hand. “He’s lost the authenticity.”)

Leaning in, not yet ramping up

No one would call Rand Paul a shrinking violet when it comes to 2016. The Kentucky senator has already been to the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and taken multiple trips to the West Coast money corridor, just in the past year.

But if Paul is among the most active 2016 candidates, his operation has remained fairly lean even as 2016 has drawn nearer. Still something of a political neophyte, Paul has added only a few new faces to the team that helped him win his 2010 Senate race. His former chief of staff, Doug Stafford, is front and center, steering the senator’s PAC with the help of several fundraisers and spokesman Sergio Gor. RAND PAC’s most significant addition to date is former Club for Growth fundraiser Erika Sather, according to Paul advisers; Paul also put former Iowa GOP Chairman A.J. Spiker on staff when Spiker stepped down from his party post earlier this month.

Paul’s advisers are dismissive of the notion that the senator needs to put together a more conventional campaign team this early. The senator is expected to bring additional staff on board later this year. “Should he choose to run, our organization will be ready,” Stafford said.

Paul adviser Nate Morris, a Kentucky businessman who raised money for the Bush-Cheney campaigns, said Paul’s status as the Most Interesting Man in the Field has drawn into his orbit potential donors who other candidates might have to seek out. “Just from where I sit, there’s a line out the door of the establishment and money crowd that want to meet with Rand and get to know him,” Morris said.

In a similar position to Paul — call them the “semi-prepared” candidates — is Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who leaves office at the end of this year and has given strong signals that he hopes to run for president a second time. Republicans familiar with Perry’s operation say that he has shed much of the Texas brain trust that guided his gubernatorial bids and his 2012 primary campaign, with former campaign manager Rob Johnson as the main holdover.

Perry’s national activities are now anchored with a nonprofit group, Americans for Economic Freedom, that has run ads around the country touting job growth in Texas under Perry. The point man for Perry’s money is California fundraiser Jeff Miller, while a pair of consultants at the firm FP1 — former Bush-Cheney strategist Terry Nelson and former National Republican Senatorial Committee executive director Rob Jesmer — have helped set AEF’s strategy. Henry Barbour, the Republican National Committee member from Mississippi and an early Perry 2012 booster, remains an adviser to the Texan.

Neither Paul, nor Perry would be prepared to jump into a presidential race tomorrow — but it’s a good bet that if they had to take off a month from now, they could clear the organizational runway.

A runner-up in this category might be another Texan, Sen. Ted Cruz, who may be Paul’s closest rival when it comes to media profile and credibility with the party’s activist base. He, too, has had an active travel schedule, headlining conservative events in South Carolina and Iowa, chatting up Club for Growth donors and meeting with deep-pocketed Iowa energy executive Bruce Rastetter.

A Cruz aide in Texas recently left the senator’s employ to start a “Draft Ted Cruz” super PAC. Beyond that, Cruz has leaped to the front of some preliminary 2016 polling without doing much to bulk up the team that got him elected to the Senate in 2012.

So much potential, so little action

On the financial front, no Republican has more potential to lock up early money than Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor whom many in the GOP view as the party’s answer to Hillary Clinton. If they had to put out yard signs today, many (perhaps most) of the country’s wealthiest Republicans would opt for the red and white “Jeb!” placards that dotted Florida over the presidential scion’s two campaigns.

Bush has met with donors urging him to run and has had conversations with his inner circle about how to approach his current space in national politics. The Bush circle, however, has changed little since Bush left office more than half a decade ago: His top counselors are former chief of staff Sally Bradshaw and longtime political consigliere Mike Murphy.

Having sat out the 2012 presidential race, Bush isn’t entirely frozen in place this time. He rehired his former Tallahassee spokeswoman, Romney campaign alum Kristy Campbell, to deal with growing media interest, and aide Josh Venable has been handling the bulk of Bush’s political travel. At the request of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Bush cut an ad for Republican congressional candidate David Jolly, who won a special election in the Tampa area earlier this month.

But there’s no sign of a ramp-up in Bush’s idiosyncratic political pace. On the contrary, he has pushed back his timetable for deciding on 2016 from the middle of this year until after the midterm elections. It’s a function, one Republican operative said, of his built-in prominence in the party: “He’s the only one in the field who doesn’t have to sell himself.”

Two other intriguing governors — Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Indiana’s Mike Pence — lack Bush’s financial prowess. But they are big-state Midwestern governors with conservative records and a following among rank-and-file party activists, representing some of the brightest spots in the GOP’s state-level comeback since 2010.

Walker’s challenge is that he faces a stiff reelection fight this year. Republicans expect him to prevail against Democrat Mary Burke, but the wealthy bicycle executive has dragged Walker into a tougher-than-expected race. Having survived a union-backed 2012 recall election, Walker has a battle-hardened team of advisers and has met much of the GOP’s megadonor elite thanks to his role within the RGA. He has not worked actively to assemble 2016 machinery and is not expected to consider doing so until after November.

Pence, with little more than a year under his belt as governor of Indiana, strikes conservatives as a dazzling talent on paper — and has not lifted a finger to explore a bid for the White House. Yet the former member of the House GOP leadership team is listening to those who hope he will run: Pence has met with prominent conservative activists and heard out supporters making the case for 2016.

“One thing that surprises me is who is urging Gov. Pence to consider the presidency. It goes beyond his inner circle to folks I’d have thought were already committed to other candidates,” said Kellyanne Conway, the pollster for Pence’s 2012 gubernatorial campaign. “They know the governor is 110 percent focused on his day job, but they want a full-spectrum conservative who has experience and trust in all of the main policy spheres.”

Social conservative leader and 2000 presidential candidate Gary Bauer singled out the “formidable” Pence for praise: “The question that remains to be answered is whether Gov. Pence will feel a compelling rationale and touch all the bases with his family and so forth, to see whether he wants to go for it.”

The once (and future?) early-state faves

Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee are practically clones when it comes to the 2016 race. Both are past Iowa caucus winners. Both have considerable media profiles and unassailable Christian conservative credibility. Both say they are open to running in 2016.

And both Santorum and Huckabee are also taking a relaxed approach to the 2016 infrastructure contest.

Santorum, the come-from-behind winner of the photo-finish 2012 Iowa caucuses, has made clear that he is leaning toward another presidential run. His top adviser, TV admaker John Brabender, said the team from the last run “remains largely intact,” though few are still on payroll. Santorum has maintained a list of 400,000 small donors through his political group Patriot Voices and is set to release a book in April, “Blue Collar Conservatives,” that will argue for a new direction for the GOP.

Perhaps most importantly, Brabender said that Santorum’s chief financial backer, super PAC megadonor Foster Friess, is already on board for another run.

Huckabee is similarly situated: Never a favorite of the big-money crowd, the former Arkansas governor has used his Fox News show and several book projects to maintain a robust national profile. Earlier this year, Huckabee released polling from his go-to political consulting firm, The Wickers Group, showing that he could count on substantial early support in a Republican nomination fight.

The question for Huckabee and Santorum is whether the remains of their 2008 and 2012 operations represent a strong foundation for 2016, or whether that’s the extent of the infrastructure they can put together.