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We Need a Stress Test and Tucker Carlson Provides It

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  Jul 18, 2023
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

The Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, was not kind to a host of 2024 Republican candidates. I couldn't care less. Some people here have zero chance of winning the Republican nomination, which must be drilled into their heads so we can defeat Joe Biden and the Democrats in November. Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, and Tim Scott don't have a chance, so someone needs to tell them this vanity exercise must end. Pence and Haley are running in the wrong decade. 

Their chance to run was at the height of the Tea Party wave. That window has long since closed. Take Trump out of the equation, and it's the weakest roster we've cobbled together since 2012. That's irony for those staunchly anti-Trump voters in the GOP base: remove the former president, and no one is serious, let alone a candidate who can mount a national campaign. Asa Hutchinson would wilt in the spotlight, with Mr. Scott's time being better served in the US Senate. 

Tucker Carlson put many, especially Mike Pence, through the meat grinder last week to drive home that point. Pence did suffer the brunt of the abuse, being the candidate who symbolizes the old Republican Party. That's not conjecture. The former vice president was booed loudly at this once-friendly event. 

The only person who has a shot at overtaking Trump is Ron DeSantis, but he's also a wild card due to the massive layoffs his campaign must execute to save money. They're burning through cash, with many big donors giving the maximum allowed this cycle. No top campaign operatives have been fired yet, but his low favorability ratings and inability to capture a room are hurting him. Still, the Florida governor's greatest opponent is Trump's grip on the base, a factor his team grossly underestimated. 

Politico called the candidate forum in Iowa the "Tucker stress test." Many candidates broke. Fine, suspend your campaigns and let DeSantis and Trump duke it out. Whoever wins, wins—I don't have a dog in this fight. The last thing we need is a fractured Republican Party going into the general to the point where the losing side of a primary refuses to vote on Election Day out of spite. I'd rather we have a surplus of the most valuable resource at our disposal during these contests—time—to heal the deep cuts that are undeniably coming when it becomes a two-man race for the nomination. 

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It could very well end in failure. I know that, but more time increases the odds of smoothing over any divisions, providing a better shot at beating Biden. DeSantis has been talked up plenty, but he's looking like a more conservative version of Jeb Bush, who also had a ton of money heading into the 2016 race that ended with the former Florida Republican governor walking away with just four delegates. Could DeSantis meet a similar fate? Who knows, but he's following the path of many Republican governors who tried to take on Trump, and they're no longer considered presidential material post-defeat. 

The stress test would hopefully drive people to see that we need to get this going with candidates who have a path to the nomination. That's DeSantis and Trump only. And the former might not last if people think, given the state of his finances, his personality issues, and his inability to break out of the 30s in the polls. If it's Trump, OK, but we're going to need all the time we can get not just to let the dust settle and wounds heal but to allow the GOP base to observe Biden's failed policies and incentivize the DeSantis wing to vote for Trump no matter what on Election Day.