Liberty Expose: Welding The GOP Back Together

After much discussion on whether President Trump should face a primary contender or not, it appears the Never Trump faction of the GOP has its first potential champion (if not sacrifice) -- Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. The former governor, who was Gary Johnson’s choice for Vice President on the Libertarian ticket, announced he is forming an exploratory committee to decide whether he could take on Trump and his vision for the Republican party. Any primary challenge is doomed to fail, but it is needed. It is time for the GOP to have a frank discussion about the future of the party. Either it can continue down the path set by Trump’s ascension to the Presidency, or it can reverse course and return to a more moderate position that does not support the unprecedented tactics currently being used.

Bill Weld’s campaign, and any potential primary challenger will face an uphill battle to topple Trump. Even though the declaration of a national emergency at the border was a controversial one, Republican voters are standing by the President. According to a Politico/Marist poll, only 25 percent view the action as an abuse of power, and three-fourths of Republicans support the measure. In another poll cited by CNN, 9 out of 10 Republicans believe in Trump. With these poll numbers, any anti-Trump Republican with a brain knows that challenging the President may result in the demise of their political career.

Currently, the only two other Republicans considering throwing their hat into the ring are former Governor John Kasich of Ohio and current Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland. Some Republicans (like pundit Bill Kristol) are clinging to the hope that Nikki Haley, Trump’s first US Ambassador to the UN, will decide to challenge her former boss. However, it is difficult to imagine Haley wanting to possibly tarnish her standing with Trump’s base unless the President is removed from office or resigns.

Theoretically speaking, the best person to carry the torch of the Never Trump movement in the Primary is Governor Hogan. While he would undoubtedly lose, Hogan is resoundingly popular among moderate Republicans. He also enjoys a remarkably high approval rating among Marylanders. In fact, he is the second most popular governor in the United States, just one percentage point below Massachusetts Governor and fellow moderate Republican, Charlie Baker.  All these factors make him an excellent choice to restore some semblance of unity to a divided country. However, his constituents do not share the same enthusiasm for a 2020 Presidential run that the Never Trump campaign does. Almost 55 percent of Marylanders believe he should not run for the Executive Office next election season and finish his term that ends in 2022.  

If Hogan does not run in 2020 and the Trump coalition loses handily in the Presidential election, he or Haley would be the GOP’s best hope of picking up the pieces. Because a primary challenge is likely a political death sentence for the primary challenger, Republicans like Hogan and Haley should not join the crowd as they may just doom any chances in future campaigns. Indeed, Haley would be the best fit for a unifier after Trump leaves office. Last April, she was considered one of the most popular politicians in the US with a 63 percent approval rating, even topping Former Defense Secretary and Warrior Monk, Jim Mattis as the most popular member of Trump’s cabinet. Haley’s perfectly executed departure from the Trump administration prior to the midterms leaves her in the good graces of most of Trump’s base, and she is widely respected among the moderate Republicans.

With all these factors in consideration, Weld or Kasich may be better sacrifices. I would much prefer Gov. Hogan or Haley to run, but the Governor should serve his last term in Annapolis and Haley would get vilified by the Trump campaign (I personally do not want to see her family go through that).

The New England Governor has the experience running in a national election (although it was very brief), has beliefs that can attract independents, moderate Republicans, and some libertarians. Furthermore, Weld’s purpose in challenging Trump is to give those who feel like the party they knew is losing its convictions a voice to vent their frustration. If Trump did not become President or was not considered a threat to the conservative movement, Weld probably would not be considering this run. The main challenges Weld will have in the election are his name recognition and his ever-changing political affiliation.

Then there is John Kasich, the man who technically ended third in the GOP primary by number of votes (but held on longer than the other doomed candidates) This will also be the third time the Ohioan has either contemplated or is committed to running for President, so he has a well established political network that will give him access to a large donor base. Like Weld, Kasich has also developed a more centrist platform that may help to catch a wider audience, although he is still unlikely to win over any committed Trump supporters

While the Trump administration has achieved significant policy victories, the manner in which some of these policies were promoted and achieved may lead to their immediate reversal once the Democrats regain control of the Presidency. When Trump became the GOP’s nominee, all of the party’s key policy objectives became associated with the billionaire. Case in point is the border fence (or wall). Since H.W. Bush’s administration in 1990, both parties agreed that the country needed some form of barrier on the southern border with Mexico. President Obama voted in favor of further construction of the border fence in 2006; but now, many of the Democratic candidates for the 2020 Presidential Election are against the border wall. With Trump’s bombastic rhetoric on immigration by calling Hispanics rapists and drug-dealers, no wonder the Democrats are changing their viewpoints. Fear mongering is not an effective means of promoting policy objectives, it merely serves as a way to divide the country and makes bipartisan reform much more difficult to achieve.

The GOP needs to decide where its heart lies. It can continue down the path of MAGAism that will only produce short-term political victories -- resulting in them being overturned in the next Democrat-majority government -- or it can strive for a return to normalcy and promote its ideas with merit. In the GOP primary, if the RNC allows one, there must be a discussion of the messaging and policy. The Trump administration has achieved many of the Republican Party’s chief policy goals, but failure to communicate how these new policies benefit Americans will not lead to long-term gains. In essence, Republicans need to be wary of our current strategy of tossing political bombs, for those who live by the sword, die by the sword.