Someone Knows and Someone Does Not Know What Time It Is
Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire knows what time it is. He has chosen not to run for President of the United States.
Our party is on a collision course toward electoral irrelevance without significant corrective action. The stakes are too high for a crowded field to hand the nomination to a candidate who earns just 35 percent of the vote, and I will help ensure this does not happen.
Sununu thinks the GOP needs to stop Donald Trump from winning in 2024. The polling data suggests he is right, at least at the moment.
Contrast Sununu with Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota. I have no ill will towards the man. I just do not know who he is and had to google him. Burgum became a Senior Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions Group after selling his software company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion.
Men like that are easy prey for political consultants and rarely can be talked out of decisions they want to make. A successful businessman turned governor tends to be the hardest head in politics who looks at all the others in the room who were not successful in business before turning to politics as lesser men and women.
Contrast Burgum to both Chris Christie and Mike Pence, two other men who will declare for the presidency this week. Both men have high name identification, bases of support, and existing fundraising pools for a national audience. Burgum has none of those things.
Even Governor Sununu registered in the Real Clear Politics polling average, though at one percent, tied with Chris Christie.
Again, I have no ill will toward the Governor of North Dakota and would gladly have him on my show or at the Gathering to talk about his candidacy. I just do not understand why a man who must be googled to be known who represents a state with a total population smaller than that of Charlotte, NC,1 and who won re-election getting fewer votes than the population of Laredo, TX,2 thinks now is a good time to run for President in a Republican Primary that includes a former President, a former Vice President, and multiple other people who need not be googled by the general population.
I mean, good luck and God speed to the consultants, but goodness. This just does not seem to make sense.
North Dakota has a population of 774,948. Charlotte, NC has a population of 897,720.
Burgum won re-election in 2020 with 235,479 votes. Laredo, TX has a population of 256,187. For perspective, Chris Sununu won re-election in New Hampshire in 2022 with 352,813 votes. Nikki Haley received 696,645 votes in her South Carolina re-election in 2014 and Ron DeSantis received 4,614,210 votes in his 2022 Florida re-election.
I like President Trump. I like him a lot.
It was entertaining to watch him eviscerate his competitors during that first primary cycle. It was shocking to watch him win the Presidency. It was amazing to be part of the Make America Great Again movement. Even today, I still wear my MAGA hat, and I still get positive comments from everyday folks in shops.
BUT… I hope I don’t have to vote for him again. I will if he is the candidate, but I hope he is not. We have so many amazing candidates that it’s hard to choose between Senator Scott, Governor DeSantis, or Vice President Pence. I’m a Texan so I’ll have a chance to choose in the primary, but it won’t be for President Trump.
I do appreciate the profound changes he has made, and I consider the MAGA movement to now be an American movement and not just Trumpism.
Why have I changed? Because he has lost it. All the pressures and attacks have had an impact on his reasonableness and judgement.
I know I may take some arrows for writing this today, but my point is that if I can move away from Trump then his nomination is no longer inevitable.
Cheers
Goodness, if you want to throw money away give it to charity. I’m sure that there are a couple of wonderful charities out there that could use a couple of million. Mr. Erickson has a great one.