As Republican candidates enter the 2024 presidential race, Times columnists and Opinion writers will assess their strengths and weaknesses with a scorecard. We rate the candidates on a scale of 1 to 10: 1 means the candidate will probably drop out before any caucus or primary voting; 10 means the candidate has a very strong chance of receiving the party’s nomination next summer. This entry assesses Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, who announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination on Wednesday.
How seriously should we take Asa Hutchinson’s candidacy?
John Brummett His candidacy should be taken seriously for his diverse, relevant experience and for what he has to say about today’s political predicament. But it probably won’t be taken that way, considering that his strength is as a workhorse in a game designed for show horses. He’d make a fine and circumspect attorney general.
Matthew Continetti On Earth Two, where Donald Trump never entered American politics, a two-term conservative governor from the South like Asa Hutchinson would be considered a serious candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination. But where we live, and in Trump’s G.O.P., Hutchinson is a long shot.
Michelle Cottle As seriously as you would take any little-known, low-key, old-school Republican contender with decades of government experience who has said that Donald Trump has disqualified himself from being president again. So, not seriously at all.
David French Just as seriously as we should take the chances of Republican primary voters turning decisively against Trump and Trumpism. At this point it’s far more of a hope than an expectation.
Rosie Gray Not very seriously. Hutchinson is vying to occupy the return-to-normalcy, adult-in-the-room lane, which is a lane that Republican voters have shown little interest in over the past eight years. His candidacy is likely to struggle to break through amid the onslaught of Trump-related news.
Michelle Goldberg If he could hop in a time machine to 2012, he’d be a favorite. In today’s Republican Party I don’t think he has a chance.
Liz Mair Asa Hutchinson is a serious person who arguably did a better job on fiscal governance than Ron DeSantis and certainly a much better job than Donald Trump. He’s a very underrated politician, but I’m not sure “competent steward of public finances and generally affable-seeming fellow” is sufficiently salable in today’s Republican rage machine.
Daniel McCarthy Asa Hutchinson probably hopes to be taken as seriously as John Kasich was in 2016. But he’ll be lucky if he has even as much impact as his fellow Arkansan Mike Huckabee had that year, which was virtually none.
What matters most about him as a presidential candidate?
Brummett Any airing his message gets is the most important thing. He’s making the case that boorish, irresponsible and destructive behavior is not conservatism. That’s what his party needs to hear.
Continetti Hutchinson’s willingness to take stands against Trump and the ascendant New Right within the Republican Party is laudable, if only because so few conservatives have done the same thing. His fearlessness may stand out on the debate stage.
Cottle He is, as advertised, a “consistent conservative” — pro-God, pro-gun, pro-business, anti-abortion rights, anti-big government — aggressively looking to remind Republicans that there is an alternative to the middle-finger nastiness of Trumpism. Which is also why his candidacy feels deader than disco. Who is his target audience?
French He’s the first true “turn the page” candidate in the race. He’s a traditional Republican who’s provided the most consistent and clear critique of Trump of anyone who has entered the race. He’s called on Trump to withdraw from the race, and he’s defended prominent Republican Trump critics Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
Gray He represents the still-extant yearning among old-school Republicans for an anti-Trump alternative. Other potential candidates who could have filled this space, like former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, have so far decided not to run, so Hutchinson’s bid will be a test case for how much interest such a candidacy can attract.
Goldberg He is admirably anti-Trump, arguing that Jan. 6 should be disqualifying, and he had a more measured response to Trump’s indictment than other members of his party, who rushed to Trump’s defense.
Mair Arkansas has produced quite a lot of talented politicians over the years. His candidacy will be a test of how big a chunk of the G.O.P. electorate cares about a candidate combining the actual ability to govern and honesty without consistently coming off as a nasty, evil person or media “personality.” My guess is that’s a pretty small chunk.
McCarthy He’s as much an anti-DeSantis candidate as he is anti-Trump. As governor, Hutchinson antagonized social conservatives by vetoing legislation that banned “gender-transition procedures” for minors, and although he did sign an abortion ban, he had said more recently that the ban should be “revisited” to permit more exceptions.
What do you find most inspiring — or unsettling — about his vision for America?
Brummett What inspires most is that he brings precisely what this politically dysfunctional country needs: someone who can surprise both the right and left. He brings conservative bona fides, but in Arkansas, he also vetoed a bill that would have banned hormone therapy for trans youth, asserting that parents and doctors should make those decisions and that interrupting a treatment plan already in progress is cruel. He called the Affordable Care Act bad policy but went to the mat to save Medicaid expansion in his state. That kind of independent thought is inspiring.
Continetti Hutchinson is a freedom conservative devoted to the limited-government principles of Ronald Reagan. I’m happy to see him standing for his beliefs.
Cottle At this point, Hutchinson isn’t really offering a vision for America so much as a post-Trumpian vision for the Republican Party. This is a worthy — even glorious — aim.
French A Hutchinson presidential election itself would have a singular inspiring element — his election would represent a truly bipartisan repudiation of Trump and a clear revival of the moral center of the G.O.P.
Gray It’s hard to tell at this stage what that vision is, since Hutchinson’s run seems primarily motivated by opposition to Trump. Voters are likely to find his Reaganesque politics familiar, maybe even comforting, but probably not inspiring or fresh.
Goldberg He seems to imagine that there’s a version of American conservatism that isn’t bitterly conspiratorial and inspired by Viktor Orban’s Hungary. I think he’s wrong, but it’s a nice fantasy.
Mair I personally think about the fact that Arkansas, under him and others, hasn’t exactly been a beacon of light where occupational licensing reform is concerned — but that’s something approximately 0.1 percent of Republican primary voters care about.
McCarthy What’s pitiful, if not unsettling, about Hutchinson’s vision is that it’s what passes for center-right without having the merits of either the center or the right. The center should be broadly appealing and practical rather than ideological. The right should be firmly opposed to the left. These commitments can be brought together, albeit not without tension, in an effective center-right. Republicans like Hutchinson, however, can succeed only as long as they don’t have to answer the tough policy questions. Once they do have to answer — about abortion, for example — they prove to be ideological yet also inconsistent, unpopular themselves yet hostile to the right for jeopardizing the party’s popularity.
Imagine you’re a G.O.P. operative or campaign manager. What’s your elevator pitch for a Hutchinson candidacy?
Brummett You think he’s a RINO? Just remember — he played a central role in Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, and the N.R.A. hired him after Sandy Hook to lead a task force that recommended armed guards at schools.
Continetti Republican voters may want a brawler to take the fight to the left, but they may also want to actually win a presidential election even more.
Cottle Former governors know how to get stuff done, and this one is a staunch conservative — but not of the ragey, paranoid, conspiracy-mongering variety.
French Reasonable conservatism can win.
Gray I would pitch him as a serious, experienced public servant with solid conservative credentials who would be an antidote to the nonstop political circus.
Goldberg He looks like a TV president, was popular in bright-red Arkansas and projects a sunny affability rare among Republicans, even as he holds doctrinaire, base-pleasing views on issues like guns and abortion.
Mair Don’t want to return to the days when you thought about what outrageous stuff the president was doing once a week or even daily? Vote for Asa.
McCarthy Asa Hutchinson is the right choice if you think conservative Republicans have already lost the culture wars but ought to surrender slowly.
John Brummett (@johnbrummett) is a columnist for The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock.
Matthew Continetti (@continetti) is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of “The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism.”
Michelle Cottle is a member of the Times’s editorial board.
David French and Michelle Goldberg are Times columnists.
Rosie Gray is a political reporter.
Liz Mair (@LizMair) has served as a campaign strategist for Scott Walker, Roy Blunt, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina and Rick Perry. She is the founder and president of Mair Strategies.
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review.
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