In its advance story on Larry Hogan’s inauguration ceremony on Jan. 16, The Sun offered front-page conjecture that the governor of Maryland might run for president in 2020.
Uh-huh.
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth …
Let’s just appreciate the commencement of Hogan’s second term for what it is: It’s precisely 68 years since Republican Theodore R. McKeldin was first sworn in as governor of Maryland. McKeldin served two terms, and departed office in Annapolis 60 years ago this week.
And that’s the last time this state had a two-term Republican governor.
In fact, over the past six decades, we’ve had a Republican named Spiro T. Agnew, who served barely two years before leaving the job to become Richard Nixon’s disgraced vice president, and Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who left because voters realized, after a single term, that Ehrlich had nothing of substance on his mind.
And the other half-century was all Democrats, one after another, elected as governors of Maryland.
So we cheer Hogan as he takes the oath of office for a second term. We cheer him for beating the long political odds in this state, and we cheer him for creating an atmosphere of civility and moderation in his first term, and we cheer him for the distance he created – politically and emotionally – from President Donald Trump.
In fact, that’s the basis for those calling for Hogan to consider a presidential run – he’s a “Never Trump” Republican. Whatever Trump’s popularity has been among his base, Hogan never bought into the vitriol behind the raw political extremism.
It’s a measure of his popularity among Republican moderates – wherever GOP moderates may be hiding these days; it’s tough to find them in the Trump era – that Wednesday’s inauguration features former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
He’s another one who has no love for Trump, who not only defeated Bush in Republican presidential primaries but took gratuitous swipes at him in the usual juvenile, Trumpian way. The linkage of high-profile Bush and up-and-coming Hogan seems to play into the Hogan national narrative.
“As so-called ‘Never Trump’ Republicans search for a candidate to challenge the president in 2020, some have been urging Hogan to run,” The Sun reported in its story, calling the governor “a rising figure” in the GOP.
Hogan as a “rising figure,” yes.
A legitimate contender to run for president?
Uh, sure.
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth …
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
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