Liz Cheney for president!?

No, I don't want her to be president (although she would be much better than most current Republicans), but if she runs, she could likely take away a ton of votes from the MAGA GOP side, keeping Trump (or one of his diseased offspring) away from the presidency.  

Steve Schmidt agrees.

How Liz Cheney can kill the MAGA threat

Killing the MAGA movement is beyond the capacity and imagination of the national Democratic Party’s sclerotic and inept leadership. It has failed utterly. Even more atrociously, Chuck Schumer has failed to adequately support and fund the very best Democratic candidates in the country, including Tim Ryan and Val Demings.

The American two-party system has failed. This moment of national crisis demands the creation of a new political party that will serve as a coalition partner to the Democratic Party. It must defend the United States Constitution and the American Republic from the extremist movement that threatens it, and is currently headed by Donald Trump.

There are millions of Republican voters who are appalled by both Donald Trump and the Democratic Party. It matters not whether I approve of their analysis or risk assessment. It is simply true that, for whatever reason, millions of Americans remain unconvinced that Donald Trump is a threat to them, while maintaining that the Democratic Party is.  The disinterest around that question and the sanctimony unleashed by the left end of the pro-democracy coalition — when it is occasionally considered — is more than ample evidence to dismiss as ludicrous the idea that the current Democratic Party leadership has the skill to assemble a big tent coalition to decisively rebuke a frightening and belligerent minority hell bent on seizing political power and ending American democracy.

Liz Cheney is the most famous of the 10 impeachment managers who lost their political careers within the Republican Party for opposing Donald Trump. Congresswoman Cheney has often said that she will do anything within her power to make sure that Donald Trump never returns to the Oval Office.

That assertion clearly has two parts attached to it. The first must be viewed in the context of the discharge of Ms. Cheney’s constitutional duty as a minority member of the January 6 Select Committee. Her service on this vital investigative committee has been luminescent in a cynical time. Her conduct and selfless devotion to duty has been rightfully praised by people of good faith and goodwill from varying political backgrounds who maintain devotion to the nation and constitution above any consideration including political party, faction, tribe, clique, gang, family or person.

The January 6 committee has exposed sedition and assigned responsibility for the betrayal through meticulous, fact-based presentations. There is no doubt about what happened, and who was responsible for the greatest act of treachery ever committed by a president against America. The American people owe Chairman Thompson, Congresswoman Cheney, Congressman Kinzinger, Congressman Raskin and all of the members and staff a great debt of thanks. Each performed their duty in exemplary fashion and rebutted through word and deed the deep distrust and contempt the American people hold for the Congress.

The second aspect of Ms. Cheney’s assertion must be evaluated through an electoral lens. Ms. Cheney is clearly intimating that she may run against Donald Trump for the presidency. It is here where the American public will soon be owed greater clarity from Ms. Cheney about her intentions and strategy.

What exactly does she mean when she says she will do anything to stop Donald Trump from reaching the White House? What are the follow-up questions that must be asked around a vital candidacy?

Donald Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024. In fact, it is probably more accurate to describe him as the presumptive nominee. Ms. Cheney has no conceivable pathway to the Republican nomination. She held her ground admirably, and did not submit like nearly every other elected Republican member of Congress to a cause that almost everyone of them vigorously denounced at one time. She is an authentic conservative with a deep devotion to the US Constitution who will never be competitive against Donald Trump in a New Hampshire primary.

That leaves only one path. Liz Cheney can end the MAGA movement by breaking up the Republican Party, which has been completely taken over by the MAGA movement at a local, state and national level. Simply put, the inmates are in charge of the asylum. It’s all MAGA all the time, and it is much more Steve Bannon’s party than Liz Cheney’s party. The failure to recognize this is delusional. Delusion is not an ally in a fight against authoritarian extremists.

Ms. Cheney can start a conservative party that is hard-line on guns, abortion and national security, but is uncompromisingly pro-democracy.

This party will be able to advance elements of a conservative agenda that can be accommodated by the senior coalition partner, the Democratic Party. Together, both parties will be able to keep the MAGA minority from seizing power and ending democracy.

Over time, a principled, steadfast, uncompromising conservative party will be able to strangle MAGA. It will achieve that worthy goal by losing virtuously. A conservative party would be the home for a small fraction of the electorate, maybe no more than 15 per cent of the country. That is a minority percentage, but a large raw number. It is a number big enough to matter. It is a number that is more than ample for seats at the table in a coalition where compromise and accommodation are celebrated as important markers of achievement — as people of good faith strive to reform and renew America. The goal of politics should be to make life better for the people, not to enrich the politicians and definitely not for the purposes of burning down the society and starting a civil war.

Decent conservatives and moderate Republicans who have not been welcomed by the Democrats — and have been told that they must repent and seek redemption from political partisans in the other party who hate them — need a place to call home.

They must become permanently severed from their former friends who have abandoned democracy but carry the letter “R” with them still. That letter and name means something to these people. They don’t like people who scream at them about Ronald Reagan being a war criminal. They don’t like being told that the condition of the country is their fault, though they oppose it as fervently as the Democrats who castigate them. Everyone needs a home and everyone needs to be seen and heard.

Liz Cheney may lead these people through a long wilderness and one day restore the Republican Party as a vessel of American democracy and decency. She may one day be the nominee for president of that party, but it’s a long way off. Today, the Republican Party of MAGA is occupied territory. There is no way in, and no way out.

There is a lethal strategy at hand for MAGA though.

All that has to happen is for Liz Cheney to say, “I’m running for president as a conservative. I’ll be on the ballot in all 50 states. Join me.”

If she holds that line, MAGA is over as a political threat. Once that happens, temperatures can cool and we can start talking about better again.

Link to Steve Schmidt's Substack is here.