Here Comes Everybody

I n the days after the 2022 midterms, commentators immediately began to talk about a potential matchup of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. The Donald is running as a revenge and restoration candidate. He’s in. And certainly DeSantis will throw his hat in. His poll numbers in the party, his fundraising ability, and the fact that warm memories of his example during the Covid era will likely fade by 2028 all point to a 2024 heavyweight matchup.

Surely we could have a clean fight like Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan in 1976, or Al Gore vs. Bill Bradley in 2000 — one that would have the benefit of forcing the eventual winner to confront, mollify, and as much as possible conciliate the other sectors of his party before going on to the general.

Nope!

We’re not even at Thanksgiving, and the minibus of GOP 2024 candidates is already starting to unload. Half a dozen have made noises about running since the election. They include former vice president Mike Pence, former governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, former CIA director and secretary of state Mike Pompeo, former governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson, and governor of Maryland Larry Hogan.

Were you longing for those debate nights when the field was split into two groups of ten or more candidates making their cases for national leadership in 90 seconds or less? Well, that may be coming again. Every new entrant lowers the bar for others.

In the above list we haven’t even exhausted the bench of GOP governors who could plausibly cut national figures: Bill Lee of Tennessee, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Gregg Abbott of Texas, and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia. All four of these make more sense than Asa Hutchinson or Larry Hogan. And if Christie can run a sequel campaign from 2016 in 2024, why not Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz? Usually a field is rounded out by newish senators with a unique ideological perspective. In the last open GOP primary, that was the libertarian Rand Paul. Maybe Josh Hawley this time.

And we haven’t gotten to the people whose qualifications are that they’ve never held office before. That was Trump and Carly Fiorina in 2016. Maybe someone currently obscure with a great résumé, such as donor and effective Republican activist Al Hubbard, who has moved from being the chairman of the Indiana Republican Party to become a very effective advocate for lowering hospital bills. In him, you’d have a man who bridges the establishment and a new populist base with policy.

Then there’s the conservative media crew. In the past, the GOP allowed its presidential nominating contest to help raise the profiles of talkers and activists such as Alan Keyes. Could we see Tucker Carlson get into the race? Donald Trump once dangled an admin job to Jeanine Pirro. Maybe she runs to put her name back on the list for attorney general. Then there are other Trump family members. I mean, why not?

The most obvious effect is to repeat 2016. Allow Trump to have a Trump lane all to himself — perhaps up to 35 or 40 percent. Ron DeSantis gets reduced from anti-Fauci King of Florida to just one of four or five successful governors. And the ideologically split contenders divide up the rest of the field among themselves. Then the delegate system does its vicious work in rewarding a plurality winner like Trump.

Nobody wants this. Mike Pence’s candidacy is born hermaphroditic. Partly an obvious break from Trump, but constantly touting the accomplishments of the “Trump–Pence” administration. Hutchinson is running, but why? He wants the 20 percent of Americans who said in 2022 exit polls that gender ideology is going in a good direction in this country? Governor Hogan, the candidate for the Republicans who liked masking their kids?

We already know the Republican Party has plenty of mediocrities. Let’s not wreck the executive branch even more by turning them all out in the pageant show.