The tragedy of Asa Hutchinson

A man without a party.

(Asa Hutchinson, tragic)

On Earth 2, Asa Hutchinson is a very credible candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

He’s been a member of Congress. The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. And, most recently, a popular, twice-elected governor of Arkansas.

The announcement of his planned 2024 candidacy on Sunday was pitch perfect.

“As I’ve traveled the country for six months, I hear people talk about the leadership of our country, and I’m convinced that people want leaders that appeal to the best of America and not simply appeal to our worst instincts,” he said in an interview with ABC News.

Good message! On Earth 2.

Over here on the regular old Earth, Hutchinson’s candidacy is an utter non-starter, a fundamental misunderstanding of the current moment in Republican politics.

Hutchinson’s announcement — and the overall feeling surrounding his campaign — feels sort of quaint, like a dial-up modem in the era of lightning fast wifi. A black and white character in a color movie.

See, Hutchinson is running for president explicitly as an antidote to the Trump fever that has raged through the GOP over the past 8 years.

In his interview with ABC, Hutchinson called on Trump to drop out of the 2024 race due to his pending indictment over allegations he paid off a porn star to cover up a relationship he had with her.

“The office is more important than any individual person,” said Hutchinson. “And so, for the sake of the office of the presidency, I do think that's too much of a side show and distraction, and he needs to be able to concentrate on his due process, and there is a presumption of innocence.”

😂😂😂

Not only will Trump never even consider dropping out of the presidential race because of the indictment, he is actively raising money — $4 million in the first 24 hours after the indictment was announced — off of it. And plotting how to benefit politically from the grand jury’s decision.

His other rivals for the nomination? They’re all aboard the Trump train too. This, from the New York Times, is telling:

In the hours after a grand jury indicted Mr. Trump, many of his potential rivals for the Republican presidential nomination snapped into line behind him, looking more like allies than competitors. All passed on the opportunity to criticize him, and some rushed to his defense, expressing concerns about the legitimacy of the case.

Which makes Hutchinson the odd man out. WAY out.

Hutchinson has said he is running not as anti Trump candidate but as a “non Trump” candidate. He explained the difference this way to ABC:

When I say non-Trump, I want to be able to speak to the Trump voters, I want to be able to speak to all the party and say, this is the leadership that I want to provide, and I think that we need to have border security. I think we need to have a strong America. I think we need to spend less at the federal level. These are the values that I represent.

Here’s the thing: For the average Republican primary voter, that’s a distinction without a difference. And they don’t want either an anti Trump candidate or a non Trump candidate.

Put even more simply: There is NO room in this Republican race (or Republican party) for a candidate — like Hutchinson — who is expressly running to reverse the Trump years.

I’ll prove it.

In a new Yahoo/You Gov poll, Trump led the 2024 field with 52%. He was followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who owes his political career to Trump and who has modeled his approach to public life on Trump, with 21%. Nikki Haley, who came to prominence nationally by serving in Trump’s administration, took 5%. Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, took 3%. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and the best known of the anti Trump voices within the party, managed just 2%. Liz Cheney, another Trump critic, took 0%.

That poll is no outlier. Time and time again, the Christies, Hutchinsons and Cheneys are relegated to somewhere between 0% and 2% support in polls that show Trump (and the candidates running on some form of Trumpism) taking the vast majority of the vote among Republicans.

Look. Hutchinson seems like a nice guy. And, with his background, he’d probably make a pretty decent conservative president (and an appealing general election nominee against Joe Biden).

But, Hutchinson is literally on another planet if he thinks this iteration of the Republican party is open to a message like the one he appears to be selling.

For all of the talk among the likes of Hutchinson that the Trump fever would break — after 2016, after 2018, after 2020, after 2022 — it still hasn’t.

Just one data point to drive that home: 93% of Republicans believe that the indictment of Trump is “politically motivated” including 83% who say politics played a major role in it, according to a new CNN poll.

Hutchinson has his reasons for running — most notably that, at 72 years old, this is probably his last, best chance to offer himself up as a candidate for national office.

And he no doubt believes in his message — that the time has come (or come again) for principled conservatives to lead the Republican party.

The problem for him — and for Christie and Cheney and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu — is that rank and file Republicans don’t see the world that way.

Some love Trump. Some are ready to move on from him. But almost all like the changes he has wrought in the party — making it more populist, more protectionist and more personality driven.

There’s zero interest in going back to the George W. Bush “compassionate conservative” version of the GOP. This is Trump’s party now — and the likes of Hutchinson are very much not welcome.