With five presidential candidates on the bill and others
likely to join, the Michigan Republican Party’s Mackinac Island conference in September shapes
up as a major campaign event, in part due to good timing.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Wednesday became the fifth GOP conference
participant, joining Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker and Carly Fiorina.
The announcement comes as Kasich has mounted a bit of a
surge in New Hampshire, though it remains to be seen if he makes the Top 10 cut
for the first presidential debate on Thursday. If he does, the former
congressman will have a home field advantage as the location for the Fox News
debate is the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.
days after the second GOP debate, moderated by CNN, at the Reagan Presidential
Library in southern California.
At that point, the candidates on Mackinac will be playing
either offense or defense, depending on the outcome of the first two debates, as
the national media will be fully engaged in dissecting the state of the race.
The conference also comes at the start of a 6-week lull
in the debate schedule so what the candidates say and do on Mackinac definitely
will not stay on Mackinac.
for the candidates while the Grand Hotel, despite its size, consists of fairly
close quarters in the lobby and down the halls where the auditorium and meeting
rooms are located. So, the likelihood of candidates bumping into one another in
unscripted, perhaps revealing ways is very good.
faced a firestorm of criticism for allowing only the Top 10 candidates in the
polls on stage for the main event on Thursday at 9 p.m., the rules for the CNN
debate are nearly identical.
Fox has invited the second tier of seven candidates to participate
in a separate standoff at 5 p.m. Thursday. CNN will limit the stage to the Top
10 candidates in national polls just prior to the Sept. 16 event. The remaining
candidates with at least 1 percent in three recent polls at the time can participate
in a separate televised segment.
