Liz Cheney, one of the most vociferous critics of Donald Trump in the Republican Party, says she is weighing whether to mount her own third-party candidacy for the White House, as she vows to do “whatever it takes” to prevent the former president from returning to office....Cheney is selling a memoir called Oath and Honor; it goes on sale today and is #1 on the Amazon bestseller list as I type this. So she's trying to get media coverage. I think that's her major motivation for saying this right now. I'm skeptical that she'll really run.
“Several years ago, I would not have contemplated a third-party run,” Cheney said in a Monday interview with The Washington Post. But, she said, “I happen to think democracy is at risk at home, obviously, as a result of Donald Trump’s continued grip on the Republican Party, and I think democracy is at risk internationally as well.”
... Cheney ... underscored that she would not do anything that would help Trump return to the White House.
She's saying a lot of things to get attention, like this:
Liz Cheney, once a rising leader in the GOP who has become a crusader against Donald Trump, says she may soon be ready to forge a new third party....She's had a year to lay some groundwork for a right-wing third party if that's what she wants, and she's done nothing, so this is vaporware.
"I certainly hope to play a role in helping to ensure that the country has ... a new, fully conservative party," she told USA TODAY in an interview Monday about her new book, "Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning," out Tuesday. "And so whether that means restoring the current Republican Party, which ... looks like a very difficult if not impossible task, or setting up a new party, I do hope to be involved and engaged in that."
She also tells USA Today she's considering a presidential run, possibly with No Labels. But:
Cheney said she wouldn't run on the No Labels ticket if it seemed likely to play a spoiler role, helping to elect Trump − which is what many top Democratic and nonpartisan analysts warn.I don't like Cheney's politics apart from her opposition to Trump, but I think she's intelligent and can read a poll. I also think she's genuinely angry at Trump and his enablers in Congress. (Both stories tell us that really doesn't like House Speaker Mike Johnson for this reason.) In the interviews, she also floats the idea of backing Democrats -- the Post reports,
If she does not run for the White House, Cheney is not ruling out voting for Biden or campaigning for him if he is the 2024 Democratic nominee.USA Today tell us,
... she is in the odd position of urging Republican voters to elect Democrats to the House and Senate, warning that Speaker Mike Johnson and his GOP caucus, beholden to Trump, she says, can't be trusted to certify the legitimate results of the next election.Trump derailed Cheney's career and threatens the global alliances she and her father support, so she (understandably) bears a grudge against him and really doesn't seem as if she'd secretly be fine with a Trump victory (unlike, say, Joe Manchin, who could probably be named secretary of energy in a second Trump administration, as a reward for splitting the anti-Trump vote). Like most politicians, Cheney is vain, but (again, unlike Joe Manchin) she regularly basks in positive feedback from the liberal media (looking at you, Rachel Maddow), so that may be all her ego requires, at least until her likely run for governor or a U.S. Senate seat in Virginia, where she grew up and is now living again. I could be wrong, but if I were offered the opportunity, I'd place a small bet on Cheney passing up a run.
"It's not a position that I've arrived at lightly," she said.
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