As Ernst revs up hogs, elephants enter room
GOP hopefuls make nice, some tiptoe around bikes
DES MOINES, Iowa — As Republican presidential hopefuls negotiated a motorcycle ride and pig roast Saturday in Iowa farm country, the race was on for who had more swagger — the bikers who could become the party’s nominee, or the woman senator leading the trip.
There was Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor who is not yet an official candidate for president, front and center on a shiny silver Harley-Davidson.
And former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, riding in from the next town over, who enjoys the Iowa street cred of appearing more at home in blue jeans and cowboy boots than the suits of Washington.
But Joni Ernst, the first woman to represent Iowa in Congress — who promised to apply her farm experience castrating hogs, in a memorable campaign ad, to make Washington “squeal” — may emerge as the day’s leader of the pack.
“Ride to live, live to ride!” the Republican senator cheered outside Big Barn Harley-Davidson in Des Moines before climbing aboard her 2009 Softail Deluxe and heading out for the 38-mile trip to host a pig roast in Boone.
“Joni’s 1st annual Roast and Ride” was part fundraiser, part campaign stop on the road to Iowa’s first-in-thenation presidential caucus next year, drawing not only Walker and Perry, but Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Carly Fiorina.
Rubio provided much of the buzz as Iowans begin to take a closer look at the candidate they ranked sec- ond after Walker in the crowded GOP field, according to a recent Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll.
But Saturday also serves as a coming out for Ernst, the 44-year-old Army Reserve officer who wowed the political establishment when she won the open Senate seat last fall.
Ernst has taken the oldfashioned approach to starting her Senate career. She has kept a lower profile than some of her fellow freshmen, as Senate tradition prefers, and quietly gone about the business of doing her job, much the way another trailblazing woman senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, once did.
Saturday ’s event, though, offered the opportunity for her to kickstart her profile.
“I love a senator who knows how to castrate a pig, ride a hog and cut the pork in Washington, D.C.,” Walker said taking the stage amid hay bales and country music at the Central Iowa Exposition grounds in Boone. “Now wouldn’t it be nice to give her an ally in the White House to help get the job done?”
For the potential presidential hopefuls, the event provided a dilemma: To ride, or not to ride.
While Walker and Perry were all set to climb on their “hogs,” for others the smarter strategy was just to glide into town.
Rubio, who declined an offer to ride on the back of Ernst’s bike, was holding a meet-and-greet in the morning before making his way to Boone. Carson was expected at the Des Moines downtown Farmer’s Market. Fiorina walked the parade route in nearby Story City.
The day was Iowa politics at its hometown best — candidates taking selfies, chopping pork and otherwise cornballing around with a robust crowd of people who, as many will tell you, expect to look the candidates in the eye before giving them a vote.
“My mind’s not made up,” said “Mohawk” Mike Right, an education specialist for a motorcycle advocacy group.
Ernst, who has not endorsed any of the candidates, even though Rubio was an early backer of her Senate campaign, said she too was keeping an open mind.
“What I’m looking for is a candidate who’s going to stand up and defend the constitution,” said Ernst.
On that, the riders, before boarding their bikes, hollered approval.