JD Vance’s Race to Lose? – RedState

Part 2

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the 2028 Republican presidential nomination:

Less than a day after the U.S. started bombing Iran, President Trump met with two dozen donors at his Mar-a-Lago membership…Trump requested the gang: What do you suppose of JD Vance and Marco Rubio?  The friends applauded louder for Rubio, according to people in the room. 

Which brings me proper back to my earlier column on the subject.

Last month, we started our dialogue of potential 2028 Republican challengers to Vice President JD Vance, and we also in contrast the 2028 race to the 1988 Republican presidential main race, the last time the sitting vice president confronted a contested main. Although it’s unlikely that Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to problem his good friend, Vice President Vance, it’s virtually sure that somebody will step up to the plate.  

In fact, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has all but declared his intention to do so. 

And there may be an opening. Vice President Vance faces a number of potential political obstacles in 2028 that (then) Vice President George H. W. Bush didn’t face in 1988.

The first is that the factional divisions in the 2028 get together complicate Vance’s path to the nomination. The current GOP coalition is made up of: 1) the (Bush) institution; 2) the (Reagan) conservatives; 3) the MAGA voters; and 4) the restrainers. The institution tends to be centrist on economics and social points and hawkish internationalists on overseas affairs. The conservatives are the previous Reaganites, who need a smaller authorities and less spending, and are strongly conservative on social points. They are also hawks, but not internationalists. (Sen. Cruz is an element of this faction.) The MAGA faction is centrist on economics and social points, and hawkish on overseas affairs, but not internationalist. And finally, the restrainers are all doves on overseas coverage but in any other case have no common ideology. The Rand Paul supporters are libertarians who need smaller authorities and less spending, but are social conservatives. Others are libertarians who are more liberal on social points. And still other restrainers are both financial and social centrists.  

Vice President Vance is half of the restrainer faction, which is in all probability the smallest and weakest faction of the coalition. Even worse, many of the big donors to the GOP come from the institution or the conservative groupings, factions that have major variations with Vance.

In 1988, Bush was a member of the institution faction who also appealed to Reagan conservatives from his eight years as the understudy for Reagan. In 1988, the GOP coalition was made up of those two factions plus the Religious Right, and smaller teams of Liberal Republicans and Libertarians.

The second downside is that the GOP of 2028 appears to have deserted its previous “rule” of the Republican Party presidential race favoring the politician “whose turn it was.” In 1960, it was Vice President Nixon’s flip to run as the loyal vice president to President Eisenhower. In 1968, it was his flip again. In 1976, the appointed vice president and president, Gerald Ford, was the candidate. In 1980, Gov. Ronald Reagan, who had been Ford’s strongest challenger in 1976, was the nominee. In 1988, the GOP went with Vice President Bush. Bush had been the main GOP opponent to Ronald Reagan in 1980 before being chosen as half of a unity ticket as the vice president.   

This “rule” continued in 1996, 2000, 2008, and 2012; until 2016, when Jeb Bush, the son and brother of U.S. presidents, and a number of other strong candidates with in depth political resumes, had been defeated by a brash outsider named Donald Trump.  

The third hurdle is that, in contrast to Vice President Bush, Vice President Vance hasn’t had a lot political expertise. In 2028, he can have served only one time period as vice president and just two years in the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, Bush had an in depth national profession even before his eight years as vice president, serving as the U.N. Ambassador, the CIA Director, the Chair of the Republican National Committee, and a two-term U.S. House member. He had also run for president in 1980. This gave Bush a long time to court potential donors and get together allies, grant favors, and publicize his own identify, forward of the 1988 race.   

The fourth impediment is that Vice President Vance’s ally Tucker Carlson has stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy, which is threatening to enmesh Vance. Carlson, after a long time as a conventional conservative journalist (albeit one having a consistently shifting ideology), has settled into a position of “setting fire to the GOP” coalition by flirting with antisemitic conspiracies and trashing President Donald Trump’s overseas coverage. Carlson, of course, was largely accountable for Vance being chosen vice president, and his (Carlson’s) son is a extremely positioned aide to Vance.  

Already, Sen. Cruz has zeroed in on Carlson in his shadow marketing campaign for the 2028 GOP nomination — which is a great way for Cruz to appeal to institution voters and donors.

In 1988, Vice President Bush confronted no such comparable controversy.

For 2028, Vice President Vance’s presidential strategy appears apparent. He must hug President Trump tightly, so as not to jeopardize the president’s help, which ought to keep Vance in good favor with the MAGA faction. Then he must discover a approach to appeal to institution varieties and/or conservatives in the GOP coalition, particularly to their big donors. If no institution kind declares for president – a big if – then the “kindler, gentler” Vance may have the option to attraction them over Sen. Cruz, who has his own weaknesses with that faction. While doing all this, Vance must keep the loyalty of the ideologically various restrainers and someway extricate himself from the Tucker Carlson scenario.

 Will Vice President Vance have the option to do all this?  

“We’ll (Just Have to) See What Happens.”

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