Suppose that Trump is NOT the nominee in 2024, but that a Republican will win the general election.
Who is your choice? Preferably from the current primary candidates, but I’d be interested in others as well.
Personally, I’d want Christie or Haley, because I believe they can at least ACT like grownups, and I don’t think they have a desire or compulsion to undermine the democracy. That is, they’re wrong within normal parameters.
Christie.
John Kasich.
Vivek.
Romney or Haley. I’d go with Romney because he is the one who has bowed the knee least to Trump insanity.
Haley. She did nothing to embarrass herself or the country as UN Ambassador, and that was a pretty high bar given her boss.
Christie among current candidates, but if I could choose anyone, it’d be Adam Kinzinger.
Christie from the current list. I’d still rather have a Bush in there (Dubya or Jeb).
Asa Hutchinson.
I’d pick Christie. I also like Haley, but I’d rather the first woman president wasn’t a Republican. If she won, the R’s would hold her up as proof that they were the party which supported women and women’s rights.
Christie from the current list. He is much more old school Republican and as a NJ Republican, almost a moderate.
Damn though that he is the best choice.
Right? “Give me the vindictive, corrupt asshole who isn’t actively a death-cultist.” Also my choice.
Probably Christie from the current list. If I had a global choice, I might consider Hogan. He was the elected and reelected Republican governor of my usually bright blue state of Maryland. He came out strongly against Trump, and governed fairly moderately but that might have been to a large extent due to the political flavor of his constituents. Whether he would maintain the same level of moderation on the national stage is unclear.
I didn’t vote for him in either election (he was a Republican after all), but he is on my quite short list of good Republicans that I could imagine voting for if he was paired against one of a (equally short) list of particularly bad Democrats (e.g.Bob Menendez, Cynthia McKinney)
Kasich sucks. He has passed some of the most restrictive abortion bans, wants to roll back EPA protections, cut income taxes and repeal the affordable care act.
I mean, if you are a MAGA type then I guess he’s great.
Pretty much every Republican politician wants to do those things. But at least he would leave the White House peacefully when his time in office is up. The OP is asking for the least evil option, so I went with the person who I think is least likely to try to launch a coup if they lose re-election, or to actually attempt to lock up Biden, the Obamas, and the Clintons. Yes, I realize that is a very low bar.
Christie.
After having seen him in recent debates and interviews I’ve found that he is much more level-headed and agreeable than I ever gave him credit for.
mmm
I’ll stick with Susan Collins.
Yeah, I’d choose the vindictive, corrupt asshole from the current crop of presidential hopefuls, too. Put me down for Christie, and I hated when he was my governor.
I hadn’t thought of him. I’d take him or Baker (MA) from the not-in-play list, but as I saw with Romney, these guys tend to develop amnesia once they leave their blue states and go national.
Yes, my concern about that tendency was what I was alluding to in the final sentence of my first paragraph.