Bill Kristol recently penned a post called “The More the Merrier.” It was partly meant to “troll” Sen. Rand Paul, who is not mentioned as a likely candidate in the piece. But one assumes Kristol’s general thesis, that he hopes for a large field of candidates, is sincere. “Dick Cheney, Tom Cotton, Mitch Daniels, Joni Ernst, Newt Gingrich, and Rudy Giuliani—you’re also more ready than Hillary. If you think you’re the right person . . . go for it,” he writes.
This sounds like something I might have written in 2008 — prior to the benefit of having endured two losing cycles where the Republican clown car of candidates made for an ugly primary fight. Donald Trump flirted with running, so we got a plethora of “birther” talk. There was also Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann. Some of these candidates sucked up oxygen, playing into the worst stereotypes about conservatives, and giving the media permission to paint conservatives as out of touch.
Being president is a serious job, and we should not be encouraging people to run whose motives are attention or landing a cable news show. To his credit, Kristol doesn’t encourage people to run just for the heck of it. But another problem with a large field of candidates is that they bring with them a set of unintended consequences. Add another grassroots conservative candidate to the mix and they could split the vote, allowing an establishment candidate to win a state with, say, just 16 percent of the vote.
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