Freedom Summit spotlights 2016 GOP field
Republican White House hopefuls old and new will descend on the South Carolina Freedom Summit on Saturday in Greenville.
The Palmetto State event will spotlight many of the GOP’s options for next year’s presidential election.
The crowded lineup will let each candidate plead his or her case for conservative voters.
{mosads}It also comes less than a year away from South Carolina’s pivotal presidential primary.
Two of Saturday’s speakers only joined the race earlier this week.
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson will continue molding their young campaigns after unveiling them on Monday.
The summit will offer the pair the chance to win over voters on ideas rather than experience. Neither Carson nor Fiorina has held elected office in the past.
Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Texas), meanwhile, will keep refining the campaign notes they have hit since launching their bids earlier this year.
Cruz, the 2016 field’s first entrant overall, began his in March at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. Rubio launched his campaign in Miami last month.
Rounding out Saturday’s lineup is a “who’s who” of potential Republican contenders who have not yet made their White House aspirations public.
All eyes will watch Govs. Scott Walker (Wis.) and Bobby Jindal (La.), former Govs. Rick Perry (Texas) and George Pataki (N.Y.), former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) and New York business mogul Donald Trump for hints of their true intentions next year.
Candidates, official or not, will have plenty of issues worth discussing as they enter the weekend.
A federal appeals court Thursday ruled that the National Security Agency’s phone records collection program was illegal.
The Senate additionally approved legislation allowing Congress to review a potential nuclear deal with Iran the same day.
Also of note is President Obama’s ongoing push for fast-track authority to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
Saturday’s event will also let Republican speakers distinguish themselves from Democratic contenders Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) following Sanders’s recent entrance into the race.
South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan is scheduled to co-host the event with Citizen United President David Bossie.
Former United Nations Ambassador and former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), now head of the conservative Heritage Foundation, are among the prominent non-lawmakers speaking at the conference.
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