Squishes don’t win

In 2028, I want a Republican nominee who can say no to a Republican president, a Democratic governor, or a room full of our own donors and give the same reason every time. If the answer depends on who’s asking, we already know how that person will govern.There’s a lazy assumption in Republican politics that if you’re outside MAGA, you must be a moderate, and if you’re a moderate, you must be afraid of a fight. I’m a conservative. I believe in limited government, the rule of law, fiscal discipline, and the right of people to make more of their own decisions. I also believe that the MAGA movement at large has failed to deliver on these key priorities, and in a spectacular fashion nonetheless.I want a nominee who believes those things strongly enough to take some heat for them and see them through to the finish line. What we can’t have is a nominee asking, “Do you like my ballroom?” while a dozen eggs cost more than an hourly wage, and the national debt is over $40 trillion. To accomplish this, we need bold conservatism. No, squishes don’t win. If you need to check which way the crowd is leaning before you tell people what you believe, voters will figure that out before the first debate is over. A Republican who spends the primary auditioning for President Donald Trump’s approval and the general election explaining away everything they said in the primary is asking voters to believe two different people. Why should they trust either one?I saw what political pressure looks like as Georgia’s deputy secretary of state. When a close election puts your office at the center of a national fight, the people yelling the loudest can make it feel as though you have to choose a side. Our job was to follow Georgia law, make sure every lawful vote was counted, and tell the public what we could verify. The rules had to hold whether they helped our party or hurt it. That’s what standing up to chaos looks like, wherever it comes from.That standard applies to more than elections.If a Democratic administration stretches executive power past what Congress authorized, Republicans should fight it. When a Republican administration does the same thing for a policy we happen to like, we should have the same fight. Fiscal discipline means telling our own allies which spending we’d cut and defending those choices in public. And if we believe in free enterprise, we ought to be willing to tell a room of business leaders that their companies can compete without a special deal from Washington.The opening in 2028 is for a Republican who can make those principles matter in people’s lives. A couple trying to buy their first home wants to know whether they can afford the payment. A small-business owner deciding whether to hire wants to know what it will cost and whether the rules will change in six months. Give them an agenda they can picture. Make it easier to build homes. Give employers predictable tax and regulatory rules. Tell taxpayers what you’ll stop spending their money on. Then defend those choices when somebody with a big checkbook objects. The electorate is exhausted from the whiplash. It’s time for consistency, even — boring — consistency.WHY STEPHEN MILLER CAN SALVAGE TRUMP’S LEGISLATIVE FUTURERepublicans can build a majority that includes people who voted for Trump and people who never would. That takes a candidate with enough confidence to tell both groups the same thing. I’d like to hear a primary moderator ask every Republican running for president one question: When has your own side asked you to do something you thought was wrong, and what did you do?That answer would tell me more about how they’ll handle the next crisis than anything they’ll say about their opponents.Jordan Fuchs is Georgia’s deputy secretary of state.