Former two-term Republican governor of Maryland Larry Hogan announced today that, despite testing the waters briefly for a run at the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, he will instead sit this one out. Thank you for doing that, Larry. Presidential electoral politics, like nuclear war, is a strange game; sometimes the only winning move is not to play.
I advise you to read Hogan’s full statement, linked above; it is a dignified bowing-out that focuses on the best reasons for his not running — unnecessarily crowding the field and thus allowing Trump to triumph again in a divided race — and tactfully omits other very good but more personal reasons for not running, such as (1) he would not win, and (2) would suffer the indignity of getting thrashed in his home state’s own primary provided he survived in the race until that long.
I’m being a bit petty by pointing that last part out, obviously. (Also: correct.) But I was actually reasonably impressed by how right the rhetoric of Hogan’s message felt to me given my markedly more conservative proclivities.
An encouraging trend for Republican politics lies in the fact that excesses of progressive elites have created the opportunity to attract more working-class voters from all different backgrounds. But many in the Republican Party believe that the best way to reach these voters is through more angry, performative politics and bigger government. These are just empty calories that can’t sustain a lasting governing coalition necessary to restore America.
Whatever else your opinion about Larry Hogan as a squish moderate GOP governor of an exceedingly blue state: He’s not wrong about that, buddy. He’s not the man with a plan (or the ability) to solve that problem, but the diagnosis there is accurate enough.
This reminds me of another Republican politician who can’t seem to stop making sense, Lee Zeldin. Zeldin, the losing (but wildly successful downballot) GOP nominee for New York governor, provided CPAC with what may end up being its only moment of lucidity this year when he made an argument very much in keeping with Hogan’s strategic understanding:
We need to go into Democratic areas, and the best way to get Democrat votes is not to act like Democrats but to explain why we are proud, principled conservatives. And don’t pander: if you go speak to a black group, or a Hispanic group, or an Asian voter, or a Jewish group, don’t say “Oh I love black people, vote for me!” or “I love Asian people, vote for me!” or “I love Hispanic people, vote for me!” Say “we need to improve safety on these streets — here’s how. These are our proposals.” . . .
These Democrats are unhappy with Democratic policies, and the Democratic Party as a whole, but they aren’t just going to “swing” to the Republicans on their own. It’s a bad assumption we are making. Instead, what we need to do is show up, over and over and over again. When your high-paid political consultant tells you not to go to a heavily Democratic area? That’s exactly where we need to show up, and earn the support of these Democrats. We cannot relinquish the cities. We cannot relinquish the suburbs . . . If we’re on offense confidently, that will be the path for us to earn a Red Wave, because in 2022, we did not.
My first thought is, like Steinbrenner on Seinfeld, to bluntly declare “hire this man.” (And Zeldin is in fact acting a bit like George Costanza working his “just do the opposite” ploy, since he walked into CPAC — currently known as a repository of angry, past-their-sell-by cranks — and delivered them a dose of sanity.) My second thought is that when Hogan (a Never Trumper and moderate) and Zeldin (a Trump-backed New York conservative who didn’t counterfeit his beliefs to the New York electorate in 2022) are singing more or less off of the same page of the hymnal, it would behoove you to pay attention.