Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) is teasing a presidential run after losing her GOP primary on Tuesday. Nothing would be more beneficial to former President Donald Trump.
Cheney will not be the Republican nominee in 2024. Her candidacy is dead on arrival, and Cheney certainly knows that. Even as an anti-Trump voice, she would likely be crowded out by former Vice President Mike Pence. Like Cheney, Pence has a conservative track record that can’t be questioned. Unlike Cheney, Pence isn’t the recipient of fawning praise from Democratic politicians and their allies in legacy media.
This means she will do nothing but crowd the field further, creating the same environment that helped Trump emerge as the nominee in 2016. Just as John Kasich prevented Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) from getting a one-on-one shot against Trump then, Cheney would help prevent a real conservative, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, from getting a one-on-one shot with Trump in 2024.
Unfortunately, just as Kasich was content to torpedo Cruz, Cheney likely has no qualms about opposing DeSantis. She said she “would find it very difficult” to support DeSantis and implied that his candidacy would be “dangerous.” But the reality is that, if Trump runs, DeSantis is likely the only person that could beat him. Choosing “none of the above” isn’t an option here. Barring some dramatic development, the GOP nominee will almost certainly be one of those two.
Some people seem to think that Cheney would use the primary debate stage to demonstrate that Trump is unfit for office, as if no one had ever thought to do that before. It would accomplish nothing. Most GOP voters don’t want to relitigate 2020, but if they are made to choose between the obsessive pro-Trump campaign of Trump and the obsessive anti-Trump campaign of Cheney, they will choose Trump.
Trump is weakest when his target is a dedicated conservative with little interest in obsessing over Trump (for or against him). Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp crushed his Trump-backed primary opponent (as did other statewide officials) despite opposing Trump’s election conspiracies precisely because of his record of conservative governance and because he focused on that record. Cheney lost her primary in part because she made her entire campaign, and entire reason for being in Congress, to oppose Donald Trump. Trump’s election delusions will help conservatives move past him, but the focus of a campaign against him must be on conservatism.
So where is Trump most vulnerable? The answer is clearly COVID. Trump criticized Kemp for reopening Georgia too early during the pandemic. Trump let Dr. Anthony Fauci turn himself into a camera-chasing celebrity, and the administration followed guidance put forward by Fauci. If Trump and Fauci had their way, Georgia, Florida, and other conservative states would have been locked down far longer than they were. Trump did not “drain the swamp” as promised. He let the swamp take charge during the pandemic, with no questions asked.
If Cheney wants Trump to be defeated, she must get out of the way. She has done what she can, but she isn’t going to be the hero of the story. She can only help Trump win the nomination at this point. If she runs, she will be admitting that this whole exercise was nothing more than a prolonged ego trip.
