After losing the House, the next step on Republicans’ road to redemption is clear: Deny Donald Trump re-nomination for president in 2020.
For the GOP, 2018’s midterm elections should be a wake-up call. However, my party seems more inclined to hit the snooze.
Losing smart, principled, forward thinking conservatives like Mia Love, Carlos Curbelo, and Barbara Comstock in a Blue Wave that also cost us the House should be an indicator that suburban voters — the people who decide elections — really don’t give a damn about a booming economy, tax cuts, travel bans, or repealing Obamacare.
And when it comes to Trump’s narcissistic style, bullying rhetoric, and way of (not) getting things done, swing voters have already swiped left.
Trump won the 2016 New Hampshire primary with 35 percent of the vote, setting him on a path to winning the Republican nomination for president later that June. Again, that’s 35 percent of the primary vote, in a single state whose population is less than one-eighth that of New York City.
And unlike New York, New Hampshire’s open primary process allows Republicans, independents, and Democrats (anybody registered, really) to cast a vote for any candidate from any party. And only one-third of voters in the whole state of New Hampshire thought Trump could be trusted to reasonably and responsibly handle a nuclear war.
Due to the abnormally large field of 14 candidates still competing three-fourths of the way through the early primary process, the anti-Trump vote never coalesced around a single candidate in time to defeat him, which meant Trump’s tight grip on a third of the primary electorate was enough to catapult the Republican Party down a road that even Robert Frost would say is not worth traveling.
Prior to 2016, Republicans stood for free trade, free press, individual liberty, paying down the debt, deficit reduction, and returning Congress to regular order. Now, it’s all about blind idolatry to a golden pyrite calf that espouses “Trump Uber Alles” over two hundred years of checks-and-balances parliamentary republicanism.
But it’s not too late for my party to course-correct.
John Kasich’s strong showing in the 2016 Republican presidential primary (he came in second in New Hampshire and won his home state of Ohio), coupled with his successful two terms as governor, make him the logical choice to touch gloves with Trump in 2020.
Under Kasich’s stewardship, Ohio has gone from billion-dollar deficits to billion-dollar surpluses, with a rainy day fund of $2.7 billion. Over the past eight years, he’s cut unemployment in half, while expanding healthcare coverage for over 650,000 Ohioans. He’s beaten back “heartbeat bills” and stand-your-ground legislation that have passed Ohio’s Republican-dominated state legislature, and he’s never sacrificed principle for the sake of political expediency.
He’s even barnstormed the country in bipartisan fashion with Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, to raise awareness over the effects of global climate change.
Senators Ben Sasse, R-Neb., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., have each floated the possibility of challenging Trump in the 2020 Republican Presidential primaries. I would encourage both to abstain.
In order to defeat Trump and restore Republican values to a party bereft of purpose and barren of principle, we must unite behind one candidate, or else consign the party of Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson to the rubbish heap of history.
John Kasich is the hero the GOP needs, but not the one it deserves right now.
John William Schiffbauer served as deputy communications director for the New York Republican State Committee from 2014 to 2016.
