No one, not Donald Trump and not Ron DeSantis, is owed the GOP’s nomination for president in 2024. But that doesn’t mean that Republicans with no chance at securing the nomination and a poor argument for why they should be given granted that privilege will throw their hat in the ring.
Chris Sununu, the Rockefeller Republican governor of New Hampshire is increasingly signaling that he might mount such a Quixotic bid.
Sununu has begun running ads in Iowa and South Carolina, the two states sandwiching New Hampshire at the start of the presidential primary cycle, and refused to “rule anything out” when he was asked about 2024 last month. That along with his shots at the two frontrunners, Trump (“I don’t think he can win in November of ’24”) and DeSantis (“Having [culture] war battles, I’ll just say, is definitely something we don’t do here in New Hampshire”) have convinced some observers that Sununu is inching toward a national campaign.
CBS News correspondent Robert Costa deems Sununu a “future DeSantis challenger.” CNN’s Dana Bash recently quizzed him about 2024. On NewsNation, Chris Cuomo all but implored Sununu to run.
“If your love and your passion is to help as many as possible, we need leaders right now on the national level. Why don’t you run for president?” asked the anchor.
Future DeSantis challenger? Sununu takes him on re: business, says he has a “very different approach” to dealing with private companies.
“Private businesses are private businesses.”https://t.co/VoEVflOYTr
— Robert Costa (@costareports) December 21, 2022
Any sensible conservative should appreciate that in New Hampshire, Sununu is the best electable candidate that the party could field. More than that, they should appreciate that he’s not only managed to win elections, but to, for the most part, govern well. Despite his impressive role in the Granite State and widespread media acclaim, though, Sununu would be a non-factor in a Republican presidential primary.
There’s no doubt that Sununu would present a contrast with Joe Biden on economic issues and present a sensible pro-growth vision for the country. There’s also no doubt that on important issues that Sununu dismisses as “culture warring,” he would offer an echo of Democrats rather than an affirmatively appealing choice for conservatives.
After all, Sununu has called himself “pro-choice” and supported the constitutionally dubious decision reached in Roe v. Wade, which in letter prevented state legislatures from regulating abortion prior to the arbitrary fetal viability line and in practice allowed abortion up until the moment of birth.
Similarly, in 2018, Sununu signed into law a bill that prohibited “practices or treatments that seek to change an individual’s… gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions.”
While conversion therapy for sexual orientation has been discredited, the expansive definition of the term endorsed by Sununu reverses its plain meaning, making wrongdoers out of those who might pursue a more cautious approach to social and medical transitioning, particularly for kids. Medical professionals who run afoul of the Sununu-supported edict would “be considered to have engaged in unprofessional conduct” and “subject” to “discipline,” even though countries around the world — including in Sweden, France, and the United Kingdom — are backtracking from the very approach Sununu advocates, and indeed, demands of his constituents.
In doing so, not only does Sununu come down on the opposite side of these important and controversial issues from the majority of his party, he’s shown a willingness to use the power of the state to punish those with an opposite view.
“Culture warriors” are oftentimes pilloried by the media as needlessly divisive actors motivated by electoral or pecuniary self-interest. No doubt, there are plenty of examples to evidence such a stereotype, although plenty of people who reasonably care and disagree on the merits of social issues.
What much of the press fails to understand however, is that to hold progressive social views is not to be absolved of the label. Because most elites in the media and academia share these views and are surrounded by those who see things the same way, they understand such a worldview to be a near-universally agreed upon. Those that dissent — half the country, more or less, depending on the issue — earn the “culture warrior” tag, while those advancing the progressive social agenda are free from such scrutiny.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden have spent years persecuting the Little Sisters of the Poor in an effort to force them to provide contraception against their deeply held religious beliefs. Democrats in California embarked on an unconstitutional attempt to coerce information on the availability of abortion from pro-life pregnancy centers. Sununu is advancing a divisive and deceptively-named “conversion therapy” ban that would punish medical professionals for doing their jobs as they would have five years ago.
He isn’t opposed to culture-warring, he’s just on the opposite side of the conflict from most Republicans.
The press would better serve its audience by recognizing that truth, and what it portends for Sununu’s presidential aspirations.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
