When was the last time a governor from the party out of power was nominated for the presidency? Or, better still, when has a governor from the party in power successfully challenged for their party’s nomination against the incumbent?
If you have been indulging in political trivia since Chris Christie recently announced his bid for the Republican Party’s nomination for president, hopefully you knew the answer to the first question. You have to go back only so far as Mitt Romney in 2012, when the former governor of Massachusetts was nominated by Republicans to take on President Barack Obama. Before that, it was George W. Bush in 2000, when the former governor of Texas built momentum in the primary season and not only gained the Republican nomination, but ultimately defeated Vice President Al Gore in the most contentious presidential election in American history. At least to that point (this was the Pre-Insurrection Era, you’ll recall).
Good news, bad news
This is the good news for Christie, a former New Jersey Republican governor, who intends to shake up the GOP primary race. 2012 may feel like a century ago, but it really isn’t. That said, the answer to the second question is more daunting. There has never been a governor who unseated their party’s incumbent and become the nominee, though Ronald Reagan tried in 1976 against President Gerald Ford. The last to seriously try formed a new party. And Teddy Roosevelt was not just a former governor in 1912, he had been president. This is less than sanguine news for current New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, also thought to be seriously considering throwing his hat into the ring for the Democratic Party’s nomination.
For Murphy, whatever President Biden’s faults — and Democrats these days are among the grumblers after the recent deal to prevent a government shutdown — he is still the only real game in town. The prospect of Murphy — or anyone — attempting what Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy did in 1980 and challenge his party’s sitting president (it was Jimmy Carter then), requires all kinds of leaps of faith. No question, Biden is old, but saying that out loud to win your party’s nomination does not a good candidacy make.
As Christie undoubtedly knows, among the numerous benefits of running for president as a former or sitting governor is the ability to say to voters, “I can fix the Washington mess,” the presumption being whatever mess you’ve been a part of is unknown to the rest of the country. So we have gotten “Massachusetts Miracles” and “Texas Bipartisanship,” and so forth from governors running as outsiders. This can work for someone positioned like Christie. But as Yale presidency scholar Stephen Skowronek has pointed out, the outsider benefit doesn’t quite accrue to you if you are of the same party seeking to be a far less sexy “orthodox innovator” or “affiliated” successor. It’s proven downright impossible. If Murphy runs, he should run for one of two reasons: He either believes Biden is wrong for the country — or for Democrats — as Ted Kennedy believed about Carter in 1980; or — you say the quiet part out loud. “I’m running because I think the president may not make it, and the country can’t afford that very real possibility.”
The Christie brand
As for Christie, he has the far less indelicate choice of saying he believes former President Donald Trump is wrong for the party and for America. Lots of Republicans believe that but can’t bring themselves to say it. If anyone can say it, it’s Christie, whose entire brand is saying the quiet part out loud. Still, it is a perilous prospect taking on Donald Trump. It took South Carolina’s “I’ve had it with Trump” Sen. Lindsey Graham all of one bad afternoon airport encounter with a handful of Trump supporters to reverse course and throw his full support Trump’s way once again. And that was in the aftermath of the Constitution being set afire on January 6.
The Rick James scenario
The Bull Moose swagger of a Teddy Roosevelt isn’t hard to conjure for Christie. But short of a third party run — which even TR couldn’t turn into a successful bid — it’s hard to imagine enough Republican voters losing sufficient faith in Trump to turn to Christie. Hard, but not impossible. And, looking over the horizon at legal woes for the former president in Georgia and of late, the Department of Justice, it’s not hard to imagine Trump being in a position where he simply can’t run. To paraphrase the late great Rick James, the legal system is one helluva drug.