No Sign of Social Issues as Conservative Leaders Preach to Activists
McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed reports that at a conference in New Hampshire last weekend–dubbed the unofficial start of the 2016 Republican primaries–conservative politicians such as Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Huckabee competed for activists’ attention but surprisingly left social issues out of their pitches. None of the speakers attempted to play on religious sentiment and rally the crowd with condemnation of same-sex marriage or abortion, traditional culture war issues. “I’m a believer in traditional marriage. I believe that, you know, there is something important to life, and it comes from God,” Senator Paul said. “But I’m also a believer that a lot of the way our country was founded was upon federalism.”