The articles about a possible White House bid by Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) are coming fast and furious.
On Monday, The Washington Post ran an article suggesting that Hogan’s stature as a paragon of bipartisanship did not happen overnight and was part of a long and somewhat rancorous evolution. It recounted some of the partisan fights early in his first term.
Meanwhile, the website FiveThirtyEight pondered the question, “How Much Trouble Could Larry Hogan Cause Trump in a 2020 GOP Primary?” The hypothesis: Not much, in the Republican Party’s current posture. But it did note that the last three presidents who have faced substantial challenges in their primaries wound up losing the general election. And be sure to check out the cool chart in the story.
Yet conservative Washington Post pundit Jennifer Rubin recently made the case that the time is ripe for Hogan to challenge President Trump.
“Imagine, then, a Republican presidential candidate comes along who has opposed Trump’s anti-immigrant vendetta, believes in climate change (even joined a state compact to address the problem when Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement) and prides himself on working constructively with Democrats on transportation and education,” Rubin wrote. “He gets points just for not being Trump; he gets more points for having a 21st-century policy outlook.”
Over the weekend, The New York Times asserted that chatter about Hogan as a possible presidential candidate increases as Trump’s political woes mount.
Perhaps most significantly, Hogan appeared on a special episode of “PBS News Hour” Monday night, along with Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) to discuss governing in today’s hyper-partisan environment. Asked by “News Hour” host Judy Woodruff how he decided when to do battle with Democrats and when to try to forge compromise, Hogan replied, “You can’t fight on every single issue every single day…But I’m not gonna cave on my principles.”
Click here to watch the telecast.