DES MOINES, Iowa – More than a dozen likely 2016 Republicans will be up for inspection in Waukee, Iowa, this weekend at the early voting state’s 15th annual Faith and Freedom Coalition Spring Kick-Off.
Noticeably absent? New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who will be missing his second big GOP event in less than a month after he wasn’t invited to the National Rifle Association’s annual convention earlier in April.
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“The only one who didn’t show up and didn’t seem to have any interest is Chris Christie,” Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition President Steve Scheffler told msnbc ahead of the event. “Even if he couldn’t be there, they had an opportunity to have a surrogate and or video and they chose not to do that.”
Christie spokesman Samantha Smith said the governor had a scheduling conflict and that the governor’s PAC state director, Phil Valenziano, is attending the event. She wouldn’t elaborate on the governor’s absence on the record.
“The voicemail that they left with me did not say anything about a scheduling conflict,” Scheffler said, though he declined to say what the voicemail had said.
Nine conservatives – Sens. Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz; Govs. Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, and Scott Walker; former Sen. Rick Santorum, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina – will speak to more than 1,000 assembled conservative caucus-goers. Four others — former Gov. Jeb Bush, Donald Trump, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and Dr. Ben Carson — will each send a surrogate speaker or a video message because of scheduling conflicts, Scheffler said.
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