Commentary: Look out, GOP establishment

The political chattering classes, who love a good story, are obsessed with the battle for the establishment choice for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination: Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, or throw in a little Chris Christie.

Yet there is an equally interesting, and perhaps as important, struggle for the conservative or non-establishment crown.

They include Rand Paul, a limited government libertarian; social conservatives Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum; Ted Cruz, the combative and most forceful foe of immigration reform; national security neoconservative Marco Rubio; governors in and out of office, and the latest darling of the Tea Party crowd, Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon who has never run for office.

With a wide-open race, unpredictable patterns may emerge. But since 1976, no candidate has made it to the nomination without winning one of the two initial tests in Iowa and New Hampshire (when there were contests in those states). That suggests New Hampshire will be a pivotal showdown for Romney and Bush--and possibly Christie--if they run.

For the non-establishment side, the crucible will be Iowa, where social conservatives have been a dominant force in the caucuses; Santorum and Huckabee won the last two.

The Iowa contest is more than a year away. For the moment, Paul probably is the best organized, and he inherits much of the support from his father, Ron Paul, who finished a strong third in Iowa in 2012.

There could be other determinants in this race. Midwestern governors including Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Ohio's John Kasich or Indiana's Mike Pence may see an opening for a non-Washington fresh face with governing experience. Walker did surprisingly well at a conservative conference in Iowa last weekend, as did Cruz, though that was expected.

The Bush-versus-Romney battle already has generated more attention a year out than comparable early match-ups of the past, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama eight years ago at this time. Then, the conventional wisdom was that an upstart could never topple a Clinton, the establishment.

That's instructive to keep in mind as the battle for the hearts and minds, and especially votes, of the right intensifies over the next few months.

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Albert R. Hunt is a Bloomberg columnist.

Commentary on 01/29/2015

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