Many of these governors won’t settle on formal decisions until their legislative sessions wind down in the spring, but some are taking bigger steps than others toward formulating a candidacy.
Walker, in fact, has already outlined an overarching theme for a contest against Clinton, which he says he test-drove in his re-election race this year against Democrat Mary Burke.
“In the end, I really ran against Washington. I wasn’t running against Mary Burke, I was running against Washington and the Washington-based special interest groups who were funding overwhelmingly the attacks against us,” he tells U.S. News in an interview. “If I was hypothetically the candidate against Hillary Clinton … I’d be running against Washington again and saying Hillary Clinton embodies everything that’s wrong about Washington. She embodies that top-down, government-knows-best approach out there.”
For now, the rhetoric emanating from the governors is mostly unified, and the barbs are trained solely on Democrats. And given the memories of the bruising 2012 Republican presidential primary, there’s some strand of thinking that governors largely will remain respectful to each other, even when they’re placed in the grinding primary process as opponents.
But that’s probably wishful thinking in the end, especially given what’s expected to be a wide-open, unpredictable slog to the nomination. Each top-flight contender will be forced to make contrasts beyond the ones they’re eager to draw with Washington and the U.S. Senate, and they’ll be challenged by the media to see how hard a punch they’re willing to throw.
“Competition’s competition,” said Christie, seated next to Pence at the RGA press conference. “None of us are afraid of that.”
Article Appeared @http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/11/26/republicans-look-favorably-on-governors-for-2016