This was a bit of RINO infighting from the weekend that some observers see as potential foreshadowing for the 2024 elections. After Breitbart published an article based on reporting from the Washington Post describing how Maryland Governor Larry Hogan sank tens of millions of dollars into flawed COVDI-19 test kits from South Korea, President Trump decided to fire a broadside at the Governor on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1330556513589620736
Hogan first denied that the story was true, saying that those test kits had been a “cornerstone” of his state’s defensive efforts against the novel coronavirus. Then he decided to up the ante a bit, accusing the President of not doing his job. He went on to demand that he “stop golfing and concede” the election to Joe Biden. (CBS Baltimore)
Hogan said this report is completely false, and that those tests have been the cornerstone of the state’s testing strategy for months.
Gov. Larry Hogan responded to the tweet, saying if the President had “done your job” the country’s governors would not have had to get their own tests as he said they have done in Maryland.
“Stop golfing and concede,” he said in a tweet.
“We all know how vindictive the President can be, how powerful his Twitter account is and how he can really pressure the Republicans and go after them,” Gov. Hogan said.
If you had done your job, America's governors wouldn't have been forced to fend for themselves to find tests in the middle of a pandemic, as we successfully did in Maryland.
Stop golfing and concede. https://t.co/tCXO8etxge
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) November 22, 2020
Not for nothing, but if the replacement test kits that were so dubious that one of your labs refused to use them are the “cornerstone” of your state’s testing strategy, maybe that’s why your infection rates are going through the roof again. Just saying…
Hogan has continued to take his fight with Donald Trump public for several months now. This has led to repeated rumors that he’s considering a White House run in 2024 and he’s trying to draw distinctions between himself and the President as a prelude to such a move. To be fair, he’s term-limited as governor and will be out of office by then, so he’s going to be available.
But I’ve yet to be convinced by all of these rumors. Hogan is a politician so he probably enjoys the headlines and the attention, but I just don’t see him making a run. As we’ve discussed here in the past, the primary reason Hogan is so popular as a Republican a blue state like Maryland is that he’s quite the RINO. It works well for him where he is, but he’d get eaten alive in a GOP primary and he seems bright enough to realize that himself.
Also, he’s been dealing with some fairly serious health issues in recent years. Does he really want to throw himself into the snake pit of a national race? It just seems unlikely to me.
As for telling the President to concede the race, he may have been a little prescient. Well… maybe. I’m still not entirely sure what happened after the Trump campaign’s court defeat in Michigan. The President told the GSA to allow Biden to move forward with the transition while simultaneously saying he was still fighting the election results. So was that “a concession?” Certainly not in the President’s opinion, but the end result winds up looking pretty much the same anyway.
So does all of this add up to some “Hogan 2024” buttons being ordered in the near future? I still wouldn’t bet on it.
