Somebody should prepare to challenge President Trump in the Republican primaries in 2020.
Craig Shirley is correct, as usual, in his excellent column suggesting that Trump will be harder to defeat in a Republican presidential re-nomination contest than President Gerald Ford was in 1976. He is also right that benefits may yet accrue even to a losing challenger — not least of which is public positioning for a presidential run in future years.
“Sometimes, like Reagan,” Shirley writes, “one must first lose in the short term in order to win in the long term.”
The corollary to that wisdom is that sometimes what looks like a certain loss in a present battle can turn into an unexpected win. Trump himself proved that in 2016, as he went to dinner on election night thinking he had lost to Hillary Clinton, only to realize just three hours later that he would be president of the United States.
Broadening the question well beyond the fortunes of the individual would-be challenger, Republican voters deserve to have a choice against such an unorthodox, divisive, and mercurial president. Some might even say that Trump is so unstable that it’s a moral imperative to recruit another Republican to challenge him.
All of these musings come against the backdrop of news that the Trump team is busily planning for a re-election campaign, while considering the extreme ingratitude of dumping the loyal, competent, and well-grounded Vice President Mike Pence from the ticket. Never mind that Pence has been a superb vice president, working behind the scenes to ensure the administration is staffed, including at the Cabinet level, with talented people of sound and sober judgment.
The question that arises, though, is why Trump would want to risk a re-election run in the first place. If he retires, he can leave office as an undefeated candidate, claiming in his inimitable way (no matter what the reality) that he had bested Presidents George H.W. Bush and James K. Polk as the greatest one-term president in history. On the other hand, if a Democrat defeats him in 2020, he will leave office a “loser,” rejected by a populace whose votes against him will refute the idea that he made America great again.
Indeed, Trump changes his mind so often that he might be gung-ho for re-election for the next 16 or 17 months, only to have his “gut” (or polls indicating the above scenario is a possibility) tell him late next spring that a re-election campaign isn’t a good idea after all. Anybody with an organized candidacy would then be in position to pick up the pieces and, almost by default, become the nominee.
Several months remain before potential challengers must make a go-or-no decision, and there will be plenty of time to puzzle out all the odds and angles. Count me in the camp that thinks a challenge would be worthwhile.
If a challenger emerges, however, he (or she) must make the campaign not about Trump, but about the public. Shirley is absolutely right:
An upbeat, principles-based conservatism sounds pretty darn attractive right now. Here’s hoping someone emerges to carry that banner.
