Screenshot from Larry Hogan's webpage.

Commentary Missing the Point 

Missing the Point – The Republican Party Elephant in the Room

Les Cohen

Governor Hogan, if he’s elected, may very well be an independent Senator as he argues on his campaign website.  Note the absence of any reference to his party affiliation which, for the record, is still Republican.  Independent, maybe, but certainly not inconsequential if the Republicans take control of the Senate.

I like Larry Hogan.  He’s a smart, mature, down-to-earth, and entirely reasonable politician whose judgment and motivation we can trust.  A man of demonstratable integrity who was an excellent governor with widespread popularity that is well-deserved.  A Republican that Democrats can respect and are willing to support.

More to the point, he is by far and away the superior of the two candidates running to represent Maryland in the US Senate now that Senator Ben Cardin is retiring.  County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic nominee, is campaigning as if she were running for re-election in Prince George’s County and is not in Governor Hogan’s league as either a politician or statesman.  And yet, I’ll be voting for her because under no circumstances can we risk having a Larry Hogan victory give Republicans control over the Senate.

I’m sorry, Larry.  No question about it, your Eisenhower/Reagan Republicanism is exactly what your party and the Senate need now, more than ever.  Unfortunately, there is no promise you can make that can assure us that your personal sense of legitimacy and fairness in government will extend to your party’s leadership.

You, I can believe in.  What I can’t trust is the likes of now Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his successor.  As you know, it was then Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who, in 2016, prevented the Senate from processing Merrick Garland as a potential replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.  Judge Garland was nominated by President Obama toward the end of his second term.  That shouldn’t have been a problem, but McConnell made it the excuse he needed to pursue his goal of a Republican-leaning Supreme Court.  …Notice that I said, “Republican-leaning,” and not “conservative” Supreme Court.  True, textbook conservatism and the Constitution had nothing to do with it.

McConnell knew better and lied to the American people when he argued that there was a tradition of not processing nominations during the final year of a Presidential term.  This was an awful thing to do, a betrayal of his oath that belied the integrity that we have every right to expect of our elected officials.

To no small extent, this subversion of due process that McConnell accomplished made him an accomplice to the loss of Republican Party morality, ethics, and common decency that has characterized the era of Donald Trump.  McConnell’s behavior is interesting, historically, because of its consequences for the politicization of the Supreme Court.

It’s also informative given that its timing proves that the Republican Party was well on its way to being a sloppy amoral mess – not because of Trump, but well in advance of Trump’s ascent to power.  Far from being the instigator of his times, it turns out that Donald was just the accidental candidate it was our misfortune that fate would deliver – an intellectually weak, ethically challenged individual who, history will one day realize, has been more used by the people around him than the leader of the movement that bears his name.  That we have given him more credit for his accomplishments than he deserves is the real secret to his success.

I don’t doubt for a moment that a Senator Hogan, had he been in the Senate in 2016, would have done everything in his power to do the right thing, to make sure Merrick Garland was treated fairly – but to no avail.  So, despite your many proven qualities as a government official, we’re breaking up.  It’s not you, Larry.  It’s your party.  Simply put, I refuse to do anything that might assure Republicans control over the Senate.

The Senate currently has forty-seven Democrats plus four independents who caucus with the Democrats, and forty-nine Republicans.  That’s a fifty-one to forty-nine advantage.  Democrats have only a two-vote majority.  In the event of a tie, Vice President Harris who is currently President of the Senate casts the tie-breaking vote.

Thirty-four Senate seats are up for election this year.  Ten are Republican.  Nineteen are Democrats – including Ben Cardin’s seat in Maryland.  Four are the independents who caucus with the Democrats.  One more – the thirty-fourth – is a special election to replace Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse who has resigned two years short of the end of his six-year term.  Democrats, including the four independent seats, need to hold twenty-two of their twenty-three seats – and Vice President Harris needs to be elected President – to hold their Senate majority.

The situation in the Senate is too close to call.  There are no self-serving, comfortable predictions we can make.  We won’t know what’s going to happen until the polls close on Election Day.

I’d like to think that, were Governor Hogan to read this piece, he would agree with its logic, but so what?  Good man or not, he’s in it to win it.  He’s not going to do “a Joe Biden” and drop out ostensibly for the good of his country.  Ms. Alsobrooks, if you’re reading this, let me suggest that you raise the point of this op/ed in every commercial and speech you make.

Notwithstanding my respect for Governor Hogan, I’m voting for Ms. Alsobrooks.  Let me urge you to do the same even if she’s not your first choice to replace Ben Cardin.  The Supreme Court?  Republican majority control over committee assignments?  Critical legislation?  There’s too much at stake to do otherwise.