Republican presidential candidates crowd into Iowa, perplexing Iowans and party leaders | The Kansas City Star

On grounds just east of here Saturday, several of the umpteen Republicans with eyes on the presidency grilled pork ribs, played lawn games and gave speeches to rally support for the 2016 Iowa caucuses.

Quick, Kim Meek of Boone, how many of the candidates can you name?

“I couldn’t,” said Meek, an independent voter selling embroidery earlier in the week at a farmers market. “Rick Santa-something? … Rick Sanitarium. And the guy with the hair, Trump.”

OK, it’s crazy early in the caucus campaigns. But Meek and others at the farmers market reflected Iowans already feeling dizzy and daunted by the task of sizing up a presidential field never, by some accounts, so packed on the GOP side.

Rutabaga and jams vendor David Keller, a Republican, recently had perused an updated tally of more than 15 Republicans now seeking the White House or thinking about it. The list included the two whom Meek had awkwardly cited, former U.S. senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and businessman Donald Trump.

“I can see so many faces, but the names aren’t coming to mind,” Keller said. “And I thought I was paying attention. Maybe they’re blurring together.”

The crowded field has party officials concerned as well and thinking of new ways to approach Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential contest, which for Republicans culminates Feb. 2.

How many candidates should be included in debates? How many competing voices (and cattle call debates, for that matter) are too many, making it harder for a few Republicans with broad national appeal to emerge from Iowa with serious traction?

“I’m hoping that by caucus time, some of the low-polling (candidates) will find somewhere else to go,” said Rick Halvorsen, chairman of the Warren County Republican Committee in south-central Iowa.

The Democratic race in Iowa presents a flip side, just as unusual. Hillary Clinton is commanding that spotlight, although a few other Democrats have announced in recent weeks their plans to make it a fight.

“What Republican voters want, young and old, is someone who can take on Clinton and win,” said Kedron Bardwell, a political science professor at Simpson College in Indianola.

With Iowans being known for their deliberate, often slow pace in winnowing out some candidates and elevating others, “most Republicans here are happy to have a strong and rather diverse field from which they can choose,” he said.

“But what they’re really looking for is a number of campaigns that can fit on one hand.”

Never-miss caucusgoer Roger Davidson on Friday studied campaign literature at a Des Moines event for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican.

“I’ll listen to him, but he’s really going to have to bring it home” to attract Davidson away from candidates pressing for greater restrictions on abortion, he said. “That’s one issue where I start weeding them out. …

“I may throw my hat in yet,” added Davidson, 68.

Polling low

With the GOP battleground on its way to staging perhaps double the contestants as in any past Iowa caucus, practically every Republican in the race for now is polling low.

The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll has questioned Iowans on 16 potential GOP caucus contestants. In findings reported early last week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker held a comfortable lead with 17 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers supporting him.

Clustered below Walker were four candidates with support of about 10 percent each, including former Florida governor Jeb Bush — deemed by many pundits a national front-runner — U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

“Then you have this huddled mass,” said J. Ann Selzer of Selzer & Co. in Des Moines, which conducts the Iowa Poll. “Candidates with 5 percent, 4 percent, 3, 2, 1.”

In this group are Santorum, Trump, Graham, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, California businesswoman Carly Fiorina, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Texas governor Rick Perry and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Former New York governor George Pataki got zero percent.

The first GOP presidential debate is scheduled for mid-August in Ohio. To avoid staging a political circus, Fox News recently announced that the debate will be limited to only the top 10 candidates as determined by the average of five national polls.

Opinion polls might qualify well-known personalities such as Trump, disregarded by many experts as not being a serious contender for the Oval Office, and keep out of the debates newer names such as Rubio, Selzer said.

“You need another way of looking at the race when the field is this big,” said Selzer. So she has begun to ask Iowans about their second choices, along with candidates they’d “never” support.

When “never” is teased in, Trump drops nearly out of sight. Rubio shoots up.

But unless the field contracts severely, analysts foresee a caucus night in which no Republican fetches 20 percent.

No offseason

“In Iowa, there’s never an offseason” for presidential politics, said Bob Vander Plaats in his suburban Des Moines office. As the founder of a faith-based nonprofit called The Family Leader, Vander Plaats is recognized nationwide as a caucus kingmaker.

The strong Iowa showings of social conservatives he has endorsed — including Santorum in 2012 and Huckabee in 2008 (both returning to compete in the 2016 caucuses) — frequently surprise GOP voters elsewhere.

But those candidates lost steam swiftly after Iowa, leaving Republicans in general questioning the relevance of these caucuses.

Iowa’s traditional role with an open seat in the White House is to narrow the field in each political party to two or three viable candidates. Vander Plaats and others noted that outcome may not hold in 2016 for either Republicans or for Democrats in a Clinton romp.

The GOP appears to be rethinking as well the importance of a tradition known as the Iowa Straw Poll, in years past “a kind of Lollapalooza for conservative Republicans,” said Bardwell.

With the poll based on attendance at a pricey, midsummer fundraiser for state party coffers, recent straw polls have been horrible at predicting the caucus night winner.

Many in the current crop of Republican contenders, including apparent front-runner Walker, are skipping the straw poll celebration slated this summer for the town of Boone.

But seven were in Boone on Saturday for Roast & Ride, a pig roast, motorcycle rally and fundraiser hosted by Iowa’s freshman U.S. senator, Joni Ernst. (She is not running for president.)

Ernst’s office sent out a memo allowing each candidate no more than eight minutes to speak. The memo encouraged them to play “backyard games such as horseshoes, wiffle ball and cornhole.”

Perry arguably did one better to distinguish himself from the pack.

While host Ernst, a motorcyclist, rode into Boone with fellow military veterans, Perry’s campaign began Saturday in the town of, believe it, Perry. Being a vet himself, Perry was joined by the widow of Chris Kyle, whose service in Iraq was featured in the blockbuster film “American Sniper.”

Perry’s event (in Perry) raised funds to help provide service dogs to wounded warriors. Then the former Texas governor donned a leather jacket and cruised to Boone atop a motorcycle that was lent to his campaign by an Afghanistan veteran too disabled to ride again.

“Hard not to write about that,” said blogger Craig Robinson, founder of The Iowa Republican website.

Others said most Iowa Republicans won’t be so quick to score early points for Perry, who sank fast in the 2012 caucuses.

Even with a giant field of contenders, voters here still expect to get up close, grill the campaigners and get straight answers, said kingmaker Vander Plaats.

“Iowans don’t get moved by the show.”