The liberals at NPR weren't sugar-coating their view of how conservative Republicans will lead their party into a "disastrous" end if they do well in Iowa. On Monday's Morning Edition, NPR analyst Cokie Roberts insisted Iowa Republicans seem to favor social conservatives who push the GOP too far to the right in a general election. They oppose gay marriage and "turn off young voters in droves" and oppose amnesty for immigrants, which has made Rep. Steve King's name "toxic" among Hispanics.
RENEE MONTAGNE, anchor: Now, Iowa is -- as a choosing ground for candidates has been problematic for both parties, especially for Republicans in recent years. But do you think it was smart for the candidates who stayed away from that event, or this event, to do so?
COKIE ROBERTS: Yeah, I do. If Bush or Romney -- Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney -- had shown up, they probably would have been booed because this was not a crowd that likes them. And this is really, actually, more of a tryout for folks that the Iowans don't know, like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
But doing well in a room like that one is a problem for the Republican Party because it can be disastrous in a national campaign. I mean, look at the Republican candidates who do well in Iowa. You just heard Don say Rick Santorum won last time. Pat Robertson did very well there, Pat Buchanan. They don't go on to win the nomination, but they do have the effect of pushing Republican candidates to the right in such a way that it's a big problem for them when they do face the general electorate. And some of the hot-button social issues that appeal to Iowan Republicans that we heard over in this forum can be a real problem. Take gay marriage - if they come out strongly against gay marriage, that turns off young people in droves.
RENEE MONTAGNE: And, Cokie, I know that you think that there's another group that's likely to be turned off by the events of the weekend, and that's Hispanics.
COKIE ROBERTS: Well, we saw immigration demonstrations there with young people holding up signs saying, Deportable?, but it's not just where the event was held but who held it. Congressman Steve King has become one of the outspoken politicians in the country on the subject of immigration. And his name is absolutely toxic among Hispanics.
So one of the reasons the Republicans did so well in the midterms is because Hispanics had dropped off the Democrats by nine points from the 2012 vote. But since the president's executive order on immigration, that has completely turned around. Immigration is the key issue in this huge, growing voting group. And the president's numbers went up 22 points among Hispanics in the last ABC poll. If Democrats can hold onto that kind of momentum, it's very good for them in 2016 and something the Republican Party at the national level has been trying to combat, but not in Iowa.
The previous story on Steve KIng's Iowa event by NPR reporter Don Gonyea also ended on a pessimistic note, as Mike Huckabee warned against too much intra-GOP warfare:
GOVERNOR MIKE HUCKABEE: You cannot create a successful organization if you spend your time taking a grenade, pulling the pin, tossing it onto the chair of the people who are in your own tent. We don't need to spend the next two years beating each other up in the conservative tent. We need to tell America what's right with this country.
GONYEA: Given the size of the field and the stakes, that's a long-shot proposition. Don Gonyea, NPR News.
