That the Post makes such a point of going after Youngkin shows that it understands, correctly, that he is a Republican they should fear because of his savvy and appeal. My guess is that the Post spots him, wisely, as a potentially quite good VP candidate two years from now.
I certainly give Glenn Youngkin, otherwise a great Governor, a pass on this. I'd probably do the same if I were a GOP Gov with Presidential ambitions. But you don't have to be WaPo or Bill Kristol or even Liz Cheney to see Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano as uniquely dangerous figures given their positions and the offices they're running for. If I were a resident of AZ or PA I would hold my nose and cast my 1st Dem vote in 30 years for their opponents -- even while I was continuing to hold my nose and voting for their US Senate running mates for all the reasons to which you allude.
I think we all know that Trump's concerted effort to overturn the 2020 election was a quantum leap beyond earlier Dem sore losering -- although the "Russian collusion" calumny and then Stacey Abrams' 2018 demagoguery were transitional and paved the way for the 2020 "big lie." If God forbid Trump is our nominee again and the 2024 results are similar to 2020 (a sadly plausible scenario), as swing state Governors Lake and Mastriano really could "strike a blow against something foundational in a democracy" by trying to block their states' duly elected Presidential electors. At the very least they would precipitate one of the two or three worst constitutional crises in our history. And they would create a horrible precedent that could be used just as easily by demagogues on the left like Abrams as by demagogues on the right.
For those reasons, in those two races the potential evils of electing the Republican exceeds the evils (on which we completely agree) of electing any candidate of the dangerously woke Democratic party.
That the Post makes such a point of going after Youngkin shows that it understands, correctly, that he is a Republican they should fear because of his savvy and appeal. My guess is that the Post spots him, wisely, as a potentially quite good VP candidate two years from now.
Bravo
I certainly give Glenn Youngkin, otherwise a great Governor, a pass on this. I'd probably do the same if I were a GOP Gov with Presidential ambitions. But you don't have to be WaPo or Bill Kristol or even Liz Cheney to see Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano as uniquely dangerous figures given their positions and the offices they're running for. If I were a resident of AZ or PA I would hold my nose and cast my 1st Dem vote in 30 years for their opponents -- even while I was continuing to hold my nose and voting for their US Senate running mates for all the reasons to which you allude.
I think we all know that Trump's concerted effort to overturn the 2020 election was a quantum leap beyond earlier Dem sore losering -- although the "Russian collusion" calumny and then Stacey Abrams' 2018 demagoguery were transitional and paved the way for the 2020 "big lie." If God forbid Trump is our nominee again and the 2024 results are similar to 2020 (a sadly plausible scenario), as swing state Governors Lake and Mastriano really could "strike a blow against something foundational in a democracy" by trying to block their states' duly elected Presidential electors. At the very least they would precipitate one of the two or three worst constitutional crises in our history. And they would create a horrible precedent that could be used just as easily by demagogues on the left like Abrams as by demagogues on the right.
For those reasons, in those two races the potential evils of electing the Republican exceeds the evils (on which we completely agree) of electing any candidate of the dangerously woke Democratic party.