The silly season arrives early
I keep getting emails from “Donald Trump” telling me that “2024 will be here before you know it.” I fear he’s right. Indeed, at my age, 2026 will be here before I know it.
I’m old enough to remember when rampant speculation about presidential races didn’t begin until the election year itself. Will Henry Cabot Lodge return from his post in Saigon to run for the Republican nomination in 1964? Will Robert Kennedy challenge Lyndon Johnson in 1968?
In recent times, the speculation has commenced the year before the presidential election. Will Donald Trump run? How formidable will he be?
But in this cycle, the speculation began as soon as most, but far from all, of the ballots had been counted in the midterms. The silly season is already here.
The Washington Post’s David Ignatius is touting former congressman Mike Rogers as a Republican candidate for president. From what I know about him, Rogers would make a good president. But there is no chance that a Rogers-for-president campaign would gain traction.
Coming from Ignatius, the column about Rogers is an example of “if only the other party would nominate someone I find agreeable” genre. If only the Democrats would nominate Joe Lieberman. If only the GOP would nominate Jon Huntsman.
In reality, if these two had been nominated, most of those touting them would still have voted for George W. Bush or Barack Obama, respectively. But there’s no requirement that pundits be sincere, especially during the silly season.
Another thing that happens during the silly season is that people like me opine prematurely about what’s going to occur once the primaries and caucuses begin. We can’t resist. Here goes.
If Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are in the race when the voting begins, there will be no room for any other Republican candidate. There is no point in anyone else entering.
This doesn’t mean others won’t enter. It defies human nature to suppose that no one else will.
The question, though, is whether other candidates will influence the race between Trump and DeSantis. Some Republicans who, like me, favor DeSantis fear that a multi-candidate field would boast Trump, as many observers believe occurred in 2016.
My guess is that entry by other Republicans would not have an impact on the Trump-DeSantis race. To see why, let’s consider the landscape back in 2015, when large numbers of Republicans were entering the presidential sweepstakes.
At the time of their entry, the following candidates (in addition to Trump) could reasonably believe they had a shot at the nomination: Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, and maybe Chris Christie and Rick Perry. In addition, Rand Paul could reasonably believe that he would be a factor in the race.
Thus, Trump was facing a relatively large field of reasonably formidable, or at least plausible, rivals. But none was formidable enough to deter entry.
Seven and a half years later, the landscape is very different. Only two Republicans — Trump and DeSantis — register in current polling. They are miles ahead of any potential rival. No one else seems formidable politically, and the big two seem formidable enough to deter entry.
Mike Pence, who runs a distant third in the current polling but does reach 7 percent, is the closest thing to a genuine rival of Trump and DeSantis. I like Pence and he is a formidable public figure. In ordinary times, he’d be formidable politically, too.
But I don’t see Pence gaining traction in the race for the 2024 nomination. If we divide Republican voters into (1) conservatives who still want Trump to be the nominee, (2) conservatives who don’t want this, and (3) moderates, where does Pence get his support? Not from the first group. Not from third, either, because Pence is not a moderate.
Pence’s support would have to come from the second group. But if DeSantis enters, those of us who don’t want Trump to be the nominee will likely coalesce behind the Florida governor as the one candidate who has a realistic shot at defeating Trump.
The same logic applies to any other conservative contemplating a run in 2024. Some may enter nonetheless, hoping that DeSantis will implode, like Ed Muskie and Howard Dean. But DeSantis isn’t likely to implode.
There is space for a candidate who appeals to moderate Republicans — maybe Larry Hogan, Liz Cheney, or John Kasich. But that space is small.
Cheney polls at 3 percent and Hogan at 0.5. If one counts Nikki Haley as a moderate, which she isn’t really, add another 2.5 percent. Thus, I doubt there are enough Republican voters in the “moderate” category to enable such a candidate to have an impact on the race.
In sum, I’m speculating that, although entry into the GOP presidential race probably won’t be limited to Trump and DeSantis, other entrants will fall flat. Thus, the race likely will bear less resemblance to the GOP race in 2016 than to the Democratic contest of that year. That’s when Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were the only two candidates in the field after no-hoper Martin O’Malley dropped out during the primaries and a few other random personages dropped out before then.