A departing GOP senator pushes an unlikely rebellion
Sen. Jeff Flake speaks at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., on Friday. Credit: AP / Winslow Townson
The obvious question about the Republican dissidence and possible candidacy of soon-to-be-former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona is what it will mean to anyone but himself and his hardiest backers.
Visiting New Hampshire last week, Flake let on that won’t rule out a 2020 primary run against President Donald Trump. Once out of the Senate, he’ll have no easily-assembled organization. Much of the nation doesn’t know him — and isn’t looking for him. He would be the longest of longshots.
Because the Trump presidency is so steeped in the top man’s personal choices and quirks, Flake’s insurgency would be unique.
Rather than reflect the GOP’s traditional split between right and center, it would all be highly personal. Logically, most party loyalists would see him as helping the Democrats.
Flake, 55, has a very focused message on this one topic.
In a speech to the National Press Club, Flake said that “as we are discovering ... there is no damage like the damage that a president can do.”
“If one voice can do such profound damage to our values and to our civic life,” he said, “then one voice can also repair the damage, one voice can call us to a higher idea of America, one voice can act as a beacon to help us find ourselves once again after this terrible fever breaks.
“And it will break.”
Flake even has the face of an anti-Trump, one that reflects sober warnings rather than bombastic promises.
True to form, Trump has called him “Flake(y)” and “unelectable” on Twitter and called his career “toast.”
And there is much fun yet to be had for Trump fans. The senator hails from a town in Navajo County, Arizona, called Snowflake. No kidding. (It was founded in 1878 by Erastus Snow and William Jordan Flake, Mormon pioneers).
But for as long as he goes around talking to anyone who listens, Flake will play the part of party prophet.
“If we are going to cloister ourselves in the alternative truth of an erratic leader, if we are going to refuse to live in a world that everyone else lives in ... then my party might not deserve to lead,” Flake said in his speech.
Some in the Senate majority caucus from which Flake departs may privately sympathize with his Trump animus. In the rank-and-file, however, it is different.
Republicans choosing to vote in the congressional races in November are expected to have positive feelings about the current White House.
They don’t seem to think they’re in the grip of the “terrible fever” diagnosed by the somewhat solitary Flake.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
