{"id":395,"date":"2016-02-02T17:39:16","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T17:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/?p=395"},"modified":"2016-04-08T17:54:01","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T17:54:01","slug":"elections-analyst-henry-olsen-shares-his-thoughts-on-the-gop-presidential-candidate-race-2216","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/2016\/02\/02\/elections-analyst-henry-olsen-shares-his-thoughts-on-the-gop-presidential-candidate-race-2216\/","title":{"rendered":"Elections analyst Henry Olsen shares his thoughts on the GOP presidential candidate race"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Olson\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are four factions of the Republican Party,\u201d Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) shared with our class, \u201cyou have your moderates or establishment candidates, the evangelical voters, very conservative seculars and then your somewhat conservatives.\u201d According to Mr. Olsen, it is the movement and allegiances of these four factions that dictate the outcome of Republican Primaries. The 2016 Primary fits this model, with one exception.<\/p>\n

A self-described \u201cpolitical junkie,\u201d Mr. Olsen analyzes elections for the EPPC and blogs for the center as well as the National Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump doesn\u2019t quite fit. He is attracting people on a class base, not ideological,\u201d Mr. Olsen said. \u201cSenator Rubio appeals to \u2018somewhat conservatives\u2019 \u2013 whereas Kasich appeals to \u2018moderates.\u2019\u201d Not surprisingly, Gov. Kasich did well in New Hampshire, a state Mr. Olsen described to the Campaign Battlegrounds class as 45 to 49 percent moderate and the most moderate of early voting states.<\/p>\n

Throughout our conversation, Mr. Olsen shared his insights on many recent events, including the Iowa Caucuses. Mr. Olsen noted that the polls were largely accurate. However, the voters\u2019 capacity to change their minds was underestimated, resulting in a surprise win for Senator Ted Cruz.<\/p>\n

On Governor Bush\u2019s campaign, Mr. Olsen referred to a blog post he had written comparing Jeb to Rip Van Winkle, suggesting Governor Bush had taken a twenty-year nap, entering the 2016 campaign prepared to run in 1996. Clearly, the Jeb Van Winkle problem was real, contributing to the governor\u2019s suspension of his campaign following the South Carolina caucus.<\/p>\n

In our discussion, Mr. Olsen also cautioned against stereotyping Southern Republican primary voters as exclusively Evangelicals.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn McCain beat Mike Huckabee in Texas in 2008,\u201d Mr. Olsen reminded the class. Suggesting those Southern states are not necessarily committed to the most religious candidate.<\/p>\n

As for the current state of the GOP race, Mr. Olsen noted \u201cthree candidates are still viable.\u201d Updates to Mr. Olsen\u2019s interpretation of the current primary process can be found on his blog for the National Review.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere are four factions of the Republican Party,\u201d Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) shared with our class, \u201cyou have your moderates or establishment candidates, the evangelical voters, very conservative seculars and then your somewhat conservatives.\u201d According to Mr. Olsen, it is the movement and allegiances of these four factions that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55827],"tags":[55903,55899,55895,55887,55891],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","tag-2016-election","tag-eppc","tag-ethics-and-public-policy-center","tag-henry-olsen","tag-national-review"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/campaignbattleground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}