The case for Glenn Youngkin

1. Electability – Until 2021, Virginia was considered a blue state. Republicans had deluded themselves for almost a decade that Virginia was purple – voting Democrat of late but really wanting to turn red. In reality, the partisan demographics of the Northern Virginia Beltway-ringed counties had ensured that Virginia would vote Democratic for the foreseeable future. Youngkin beat former Governor Terry McAuliffe, and actually beat him fairly comfortably. If one is a Republican presidential candidate in a general election, the track record of winning in a blue state is a very attractive quality and one that only one or two other potential candidates could claim.

2. Kills you with kindness – Youngkin has already shown in his very young career as a politician that he can advocate positions that are very conservative, yet still be able to reach across the political aisle with state legislators in Virginia as well as Democratic voters. This demonstrates an ability to actually move the needle incrementally to the right on policy without the divisive politics of which so many are tired.

3. Learning machine – Youngkin began his campaign for governor on the Hugh Hewitt Show, so I got a pretty close-up look at Youngkin learning the ropes as a political candidate. In the early days of the primary process, he was very much a rookie when it came to his media presentation on interviews as well as the team around him. But Youngkin very quickly built a better team around him, and Youngkin himself got better at message discipline. By the time he was a general election candidate gunning directly at the Terry McCauliffe machine, he brushed off the attacks with a smile on his face, and kept a laser focus on the issues he knew resonated – economics, education, crime. He is as good a learning creature as I’ve seen in American politics.

4. Issue set nationally plays into his hands – Virginia’s gubernatorial election last year really was a microcosm of what the rest of the country is facing in the midterms this year. Youngkin did not begin his campaign with education and parents’ rights as one of the top issues, but did not hesitate a second when Terry McAuliffe inexplicably claimed that critical race theory was a dog whistle, and that it wasn’t taught in Virginia schools. Youngkin saw and read what the vast majority of parents did in the wake of the COVID lockdown and made the issue the cornerstone that ultimately led to the defeat of McAuliffe. He’s got a pretty good sense of where the American people are on issues, and knows that if he makes a good common sense conservative case for those voters, he’ll win people over.

5. Money and talent recruiting – Fundraising has never been a problem for him, and it also helps that he has a lot of personal cash he can throw at a campaign. In addition, his work as co-CEO of the Carlyle Group means his rolodex to potential donors would be as thick as anyone else running. It’s also this professional background that allows him to appoint top notch people in his administration around him. The old principle of A’s hire A’s, and B’s hire C’s would very much be in sharp contrast in a potential Youngkin-Biden ’24 race. Youngkin’s cabinet picks thus far have been stellar. Safe to assume a Youngkin presidency would be filled with all-stars.

6. Not much traffic in his lane – Theoretically, DeSantis and Trump, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Tim Scott and largely Cruz, would draw heavily from the right side of the GOP base. Chris Christie and Larry Hogan, were they both to run, would compete for the moderate to independent wing of Republican voters. Neither one would draw much from the right side of the base. Outside of a potential Doug Ducey campaign out of Arizona, there’s really no one that would take that center-right lane, drawing a mix of independents as well as conservatives. Depending on who else gets in, he could have a relatively easy time in the primaries as the other big names bludgeon each other.

7. Time is on his side – Unlike a lot of other candidates, his election team is still fairly fresh and available. They just ran a campaign last year. If he were to jump in, it would not take very long at all for him to spin up a campaign. While other would-be’s need to stake out ground in Iowa and New Hampshire and other primary states from now until February, Youngkin could read the field for a bit and if he sees the window of opportunity, he could become a contender in a relative nanosecond.

The case against Glenn Youngkin

1. Too wishy-washy – He openly courted Donald Trump in the early days of his campaign, and welcomed support from the former president. But when the President went down the ‘election was stolen’ road, Youngkin distanced himself. It did not sit well with the MAGA crowd. He’ll have to convince Trump voters nationally that he’s to be trusted with their vote.

2. Too Christian – Glenn and Suzanne Youngkin don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk of people of faith. That should not be controversial in the slightest in this country, and indeed, before 10-15 years ago, it wasn’t. But the woke community will come at him with everything they have. The Youngkin’s left a church over that church’s support of same sex marriage. It’s a traditional Christian view, but one he’ll get absolutely hammered over by the LGTB crowd. He’s already facing organized protests of trans students across Fairfax County over model policies from his Department of Education. Expect this to multiply exponentially if he were to become president.

3. Wolf in sheep’s clothing – He’s more radical than we even feared, the left has already written and said about Youngkin. They’ll say he lied about being a moderate. He was camouflaging how extreme his social and economic positions were during his campaign, and now that he’s in office without having to worry about reelection, he’s governed way to the right. Glenn Youngkin is genuinely among the nicest, most genuine, straightforward people you will ever meet, and that perception won’t be tolerated if he launches a presidential campaign. He will absolutely get ground up when the national interest groups get ahold of him. It’s already begun. The New Yorker, just one example, intimated he is every bit as radical as Democrats warned. They highlighted a lefty tweet that said Youngkin ran as Fred Rogers, governed so far like Donald Trump. We’ll have to see how he weathers what concentrated hate from the tag team of Democratic politicians, unions, and media do to him over time.

4. Too opportunistic – Other detractors will say he’s not genuine at all, he’s actually more narcissistic and divisive than Trump on his best day. They’ll claim he doesn’t believe any of the positions he holds, isn’t a radical or a moderate, and that he only picks topics that are controversial and that will propel him into the spotlight with his conservative base. He picks divisive subjects like ridding CRT from schools, meaning he’s a racist, he’s pro-life, meaning he hates women, and he’s a fundamental Christian, meaning he hates gays, and he plays footsie with Donald Trump, so he’s anti-democracy and an authoritarian. None of that is true, mind you, but those attacks will be repeated a thousand times in corners of legacy media.

5. Still a hostage to Trump voters – NeverTrump Inc. will never accept Youngkin, because he didn’t condemn strongly or consistently enough the results of the 2020 election. Nothing else matters to them. Youngkin can govern as a solid conservative, a track record he is writing every day in Virginia, but his dancing around with what he thought of and said about the 2020 Election is a disqualifier for NeverTrumpers.

6. The Icarus problem – Sure, Youngkin jumped into the Virginia governor’s face for altruistic reasons. He is a lifelong resident of the state, saw a lot of problems that needed fixing, and realized that he had a professional skill set that could be applied to the challenges. But here he is, only in office for a year, and he’s already flirting with a better gig on the other line. He appeared last week on Fox and Friends and was peppered repeatedly about his 2024 ambitions. He did not issue a Shermanesque denial. He merely said 2024 is a long way off. He’s running. Detractors will say the blind ambition that appears to control his major decision making is no different than Kamala Harris. Youngkin can communicate and has a track record of success, while Harris has the intellectual depth of a squash, but ruthless ambition is dangerous, regardless of whether on the right or the left. He’ll have to make the case as to why he wants to leapfrog out of Virginia before the job’s done, especially when it’s by state constitution only a four-year gig anyway.

7. Petty Betty – In just the first few months of his term in office, Youngkin vetoed 25 bills. Now while this is not too terribly surprising considering the Virginia State Senate is controlled by Democrats, the knock on Youngkin in the early going is that several of these vetoes were on bills that Democrats sponsored, and he instead signed very similar bills that Republicans drew up. That strikes some in Virginia as pretty petty and a waste of time. If legislation accomplishes largely the goal that most people want, Youngkin should worry less about who is getting the credit for the legislation and sign the bill. The hit on Youngkin from the left is that he seems more concerned about the optics, potentially for a future campaign for higher office, than he does about actually using his time in office to get as much done as he can in a relatively short period of time.

There’s still a lot of other potential contenders to come in this series – from the aforementioned Doug Ducey and Chris Christie, to Mike Pompeo, Tom Cotton, Tim Scott, and maybe a few other wild cards. Watch this space for more in this series.