Remember back in 2015, after nearly two terms of Obama, when it seemed like everyone and their half-cousin had decided to seek the Republican nomination for president? It was a murderers’ row of big-name Republican officeholders and businesspeople: Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, the son of a postman, you name it. I’m pretty sure I was running for president for a moment there early on; everybody was getting into the race, including a reality-TV vanity candidate everyone assumed would fade quickly, so the early debates had to be sorted into two tiers: the “main” debate (for the top polling candidates) and the infamous so-called undercard debates, a bizarrely pointless exercise in which six or seven also-rans yelled at one another while whistling past the graveyard about Donald Trump, who eventually became not only the nominee but president of the United States.
In 2023, after all that, the GOP primary debates are now brutally an undercard all to themselves. Trump considers this race won already and is acting like it: rhetorically running on a national level against Joe Biden (by speaking to autoworkers tonight instead of attending the debate). Because that basic reality looms largest of all, it’s hard to get too excited about tonight’s scrap amongst the inevitable also-rans. Given Biden’s weaknesses, they are now running for something more than mere future political prospects. (As I have said recently, to great popularity, few seem to realize just how possible a second Trump presidency is and how weird it would be.)
Comments