By Jim
Geraghty
Tuesday,
April 11, 2023
Below, Jeff laments
that Doug Mastriano wants to run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, and that 2024 is threatening to be
little better than a wan replay of the mistakes of the 2022 cycle. We should
not be surprised that the quality of potential Republican Senate candidates is
declining sharply, cycle by cycle.
Let’s
imagine you’re an accomplished figure with conservative values and worldview,
who is concerned about the state of the country and America’s future. Let’s
also imagine that you are financially comfortable enough to have the time and
resources to dedicate to running for office in the near future.
Do you
want to run for a U.S. Senate seat in 2024 in a state that is not deep red? It
is conceivable that in some circumstances — such as a Ron DeSantis
vs. Joe Biden scenario — the political wind will be at your back. A country fed up with
economic turbulence, high inflation, high gas and grocery prices, high interest
rates, and other problems could well decide to dismiss Democrats and their
choice to renominate an octogenarian president who rambles about ice cream before
launching into his usual tired demonization of Americans who disagree. You
could have a GOP president, a GOP Senate majority, and a GOP House, giving you
the opportunity in shaping a lasting change in the country’s laws and the
direction of the federal government.
But it
is also conceivable that you’ll be running as the
GOP nominates a man with a 25 percent national favorability rating, indicted and rambling about
conspiracy theories and insisting he won the 2020 presidential election,
bringing his whole nutty entourage with people like the Pillow Guy, as the
Republican Party as a whole struggles to articulate a clear position on the
issue of abortion in the first presidential election since the repeal of Roe
v. Wade.
If Trump
does win the nomination, the odds are very high that you, as a GOP candidate
for Senate, will have to publicly pledge loyalty to Trump, in some form or
fashion. This means you will have to nod and smile every time Trump goes off on
some deranged rant and shrug off whatever unhinged ALL CAPS tirade he posts on
Truth Social.
You, as
a Senate candidate, might want to talk about the economy, foreign threats
including the rise of China, energy independence, securing the border, the
importance of providing a good education to all of America’s children and young
adults, and maybe some emerging issues like the potential and risks of
artificial intelligence, or hypersonic weapons, or breakthroughs in medical
treatments and how to bring them to the people who need them the most.
Hopefully, you have a well-thought-out perspective on abortion that enhances,
instead of hinders, your ability to get elected.
But we
know that GOP Senate candidates don’t get to talk about what they want to talk
about when they take questions from the press. If you run, you will probably
get a lot of questions about Stormy Daniels, proposals to disband the FBI,
proposals to seize voting machines, whether you agree with the former president
that former attorney general Bill Barr can accurately be described as the “slovenly and
pathetic Bill Barr, our COWARD former A.G.” and “a weak & angry RINO!” or whether
you agree with the former president that America should have only “same day
voting” when you’re trying to promote your state’s early-voting program.
Do you
want to commit yourself to that? Do you want to spend a significant chunk of
your fortune on that Senate bid? Do you want to put your family through that?
Running for office already means accepting reporters looking through all kinds
of aspects of your past life, searching for scandals and embarrassing mistakes.
Donald
Trump has created an issue and media environment where it is exceptionally
difficult for candidates who are unlike him to flourish.
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