She’s the leopard that will still stalk you, pounce on you, and eviscerate you, but won’t actually eat your face.
More of the “I’m a leopard who will eat your face but I don’t approve of how that other leopard was eating faces.”
That leopard chews with its mouth open and doesn’t use a napkin. Disgraceful.
As we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, the problems with the Republican party run a lot deeper than just Donald Trump. A Republican putting distance between themselves and Trump doesn’t make them a good person.
Sort of arguing the hypothetical, but in a world where Cheney could win the GOP nomination for president, Trumpism would already have been extinguished. So, no.
Plus … don’t we have enough Republican bootlickers on the SCOTUS already? 100 times no.
A sliver of integrity means I would vote for her over almost any other Republican. But her politics are still noxious, so no in every other scenario.
I also wonder if this is another attempt to play to the “identity politics” that Republicans imagine Democrats are always thinking about.
It’s hilarious watching the party that is dominated by white men and caters primarily to the interests of white men thinking the other guys are the ones with the identity politics problem.
But they apparently believe their own nonsense. They think they can trick Democrats into voting for a Republican by finding a Republican who is a women or non-white. Nominate somebody like that and the Democrats will have to vote for them! They can’t help themselves! It’s identity politics!
So we keep hearing how candidates like Bobby Jindal or Nikki Haley or Alan Keyes or Carly Fiorina or Ben Carson or Sarah Palin are unbeatable because Democrats will all vote for them. Of course what usually happens is that Republicans end up refusing to vote for them because they’re voting for a white man instead. Because Republican voters don’t play identity politics.
Meanwhile the Democrats will vote for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris. But they’ll also vote for Joe Biden or Bill Clinton or Al Gore.
In 2024?? I literally cannot find any set of circumstances which would allow her to be any form of candidate for president in 2024, not as a Republican, not as an Independent, not as a Democrat, and certainly not as any of the supposed third party Parties either. She is not even going to keep her Congressional seat in the mid-terms, most likely. (On a side note, I strongly admire Kinzinger and might vote for him under any circumstances because he embodies a Capra-esque principle of serving with honesty and integrity - plus he does not have any daddy baggage that I know about!)
But she is only 55 years of age, so . . .
They say a tiger doesn’t change his strips and a cheetah doesn’t change her spots, but twelve years ago I was a ruby red Republican living in Texas and was a trusted leader (fairly low-level there, but I had been an Elder which was a pretty high spiritual responsibility in our sect) and a Trustee with a lot of responsibility and a large annual budget to manage. I was deeply ingrained in that culture then and it was not that long ago. (Also, I have been much more progressive for some few years now.)
By 2028, Ms. Cheney may actually change a few spots. I doubt she is ever going to completely outgrow her upbringing, but she has already lost her leadership role and been vilified by her former associates. If she gets thrown out of office completely, simply for standing upon (what used to be) a universal principle, she may - - - develop some new core values. She is demonstrating right now that she CAN work with Democratic leaders to accomplish things together.
She is a hawk, and she is likely to always have an initial knee-jerk reaction that might be appalling (I still have them, but I can see beyond that first reaction to other options and potentially, so could she), however, she just might develop some nuanced and more progressive views. She does understand what principle is and has demonstrated an ability to put the whole before the party – an incredible rarity in today’s GOP. She is no nonsense and quite practical. if her ideology changes just a bit she may seek solutions other than bomb enemies and lower taxes. She is smart and she is tough and she has by far been the best presenter during the January 6th Hearings.
So, in six years, depending upon what her views are then, depending upon who she is running against- and who she is running with, depending upon what is motivating her (she obviously is capable of sacrificing power for the correct reason- so it seems unlikely to me she would run just to be “in charge”), I would certainly consider voting for her if she is at that time:
~Smart
~Tough
~Principled
~Honest
~Willing to compromise
~Able to solve foreign affairs without use of military - - and of course
~Somewhat more moderate than she has been in the past
(and by somewhat, I mean a significant growth or at least an openness to possibilities)
Lastly, one of the many reasons that I am no longer a Republican is because they are so very determined to never revisit an idea once a decision has been made. THEY do it (I assure you) because they are afraid they made a bad choice in the past and don’t want to admit it and because they are very, very sure that nothing ever changes. (That comes with devotion to a several thousand year old moral code.) But if you can never even consider the possibility that things may change in the future, why do you invest any time at all with politics or government or societal norms? After all, everyone knows there will always be a Dixiecrat South! I would be honor bound to examine any future candidacy on its own merits (keeping in mind history, but not relying upon it entirely). I may, at that time say NO Effen’ Way!, or I may say maybe, or I may say hell yea!
(I would have bet everything I own a few years ago that there was NO WAY Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski would win another Superbowl together once they left the Patriots – but it happened. Making a decision that must last forever is always a risky endeavour, I try to revisit my decisions and make changes when warranted, but that is just me.)
To Summarize:
2024 – doubt it, doubt it could even be a possibility
2028 – have to look then, but maybe?
This whole discussion troubles me. It seems there is a segment of the population who becomes aware of some person in the public eye who is interesting, for some reason or another, and starts talking about “we should make them President!” Um, no. (That’s how we ended up with Trump.)
Sure, elect them to some office, if they have reasonable desires and qualifications. But why does it always have to be President? That shows a serious lack of imagination.
Yes, Cheney is at least in an elected position currently, which makes her closer to being a reasonable choice. Her principled opposition to Trump is worth celebrating. But that still has little to do with electing her President.
I wouldn’t vote for her for POTUS. I would vote for her for Wyoming representative, both in the Republican primary and the general election, if I were a resident of Wyoming.
A Republican Party that actually managed to nominate one of these people for President might actually be a Republican Party worth supporting, because the Republican Voters would have had to fundamentally re-assess all their bullshit in order for any of them to win.
I’ll leave it as an exercise for the readers to determine how likely this is to occur.
Maybe an ambassadorship as a gesture of “bipartisanship”, but that’s it.
This.
(I can’t, in NY, vote in the Republican primaries; not unless I give up, significantly ahead of time, my right to vote in the Democratic primaries.)
No. I believe she does hold her positions based on principle; and wouldn’t change her principles if she dropped the R. And I disagree with nearly all of her positions.
I could never bring myself to register as a Republican, even if only to vote in the primary. I would do it for a 3rd party. Wouldn’t vote her in the general election though.
I’m in accord with the majority opinion here.
Oh, hell no. I respect what she is doing on the hearing committee, but that’s it.
We disagree on probably every policy issue and I can probably find a Democrat who I feel loves America more than partisan political power so I’m not sure what the draw to vote for Cheney over the Democrat is supposed to be. I’d potentially vote for her in a primary, depending on how the Democrat slate was looking just in a “Well, better her on the R ticket than the other people” way.
More realistically for where I live, I could easily see Kinzinger trying to leverage his role on the commission into an Illinois gubernatorial run next cycle as a “moderate” Republican. Except he spent the previous umpteen years towing the GOP party line on a daily basis so, again, why not vote for someone who’ll enact and uphold the policies I want to see?
Likewise. A profile in courage, but not someone a progressive Democrat like me would ever vote to put in the White House. I hope she runs in the presidential primaries in 2024 to challenge Trump and (likely) DeSantis, but suspect, given the GOP these days, that she’d get creamed.
I was a Republican — some might say a RINO — until early 2016.
I expect she would pivot to the center when having to appeal to purple state voters, like me. And I have no big problem with flip-flopping. So I’d certainly listen. As I would listen to the Democrat.
The America where she could, with present views, win a GOP primary does not exist.
Besides the fact that she has the personality of a cardboard mannequin which shouldn’t matter, I don’t agree on her policies and her anti Trump deal. So I guess I would say no unless she was going up against a woke minded candidate.