Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan says he wants to go back to a sane GOP, not one that 'attacks people who d

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

don't swear 100% fealty to the Dear Leader'

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, told CNN's State of the Union on Sunday that he's concerned about the direction of the GOP and the country.

"I consider myself a common-sense conservative. I have been a lifelong Republican. I believe that that's where most people in America are. About 70% of the people in America are completely frustrated with politics on both sides, Republicans and Democrats," Hogan said.

Citing a recent CNN poll, Hogan added that "only 50% of the Republicans would like to see Donald Trump run again. I believe that there is a pretty large lane of sane Republicans, and they're looking for a voice."

Hogan was critical of the GOP calling the January 6 Capitol riots "legitimate political discourse."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/maryland-gov-larry-hogan-says-he-wants-to-go-back-to-a-sane-gop-not-one-that-attacks-people-who-don-t-swear-100-fealty-to-the-dear-leader/ar-AATO3qR

[C_U_L8R]

1. The GOP is a toxic waste dump.

Better packed up and jettisoned into the void of space than hope it will miraculously find integrity.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. What world has he been living in? Even the "old" GOP was still the party of the bigot,

and maintaining personal power. It has always leaned to the authoritarian, totalitarian and dictatorial.

The Pig just emboldened the christofascists to rise up and let their paranoiac, hateful and violent voices be heard louder.

Hell the place we find ourselves in today began with the Reagan admin in 1980. I don't know that a poll is solid evidence that the extremism we have been stumbling toward for decades is over or even receding.

Keep your fingers crossed.

70% of people are frustrated? I can buy that. Problem is the politicians aren't going to really believe that until a whole bunch of them are offed, and the way it looks now the Democrats are the biggest targets.

[czarjak]

3. So, to be clear, Governor, you're not thinking outside the White-Box of conservatism.

[mvd]

4. I used to live in MD as a child

Why did they elect Hogan? He seems pretty conservative even if not a QPublican. If it’s taxes, it’s not worth having a Repuke.

[MiniMe]

5. I think Hogan wants to run for President

He has been pretty good through the pandemic, but he is still a republican, and I don't want him as President

[FSogol]

13. He was terrible thru the pandemic. He spent millions on worthless covid tests from S. Korea

using his wife's connections. They didn't work. He's a common griffter just like Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/hogan-korea-coronavirus-tests/2020/11/20/f048c1c8-251b-11eb-a688-5298ad5d580a_story.html

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) spent $9.46 million in state funding to import 500,000 coronavirus tests from South Korea that turned out to be flawed and weren’t used, emails, documents and interviews show.

As it became clear that the much-touted tests could not help detect which Maryland residents had contracted the novel coronavirus, the Hogan administration quietly paid the same South Korean company $2.5 million for 500,000 replacement tests.

snip

Hogan began considering whether his Korean-born wife, Yumi, could help acquire tests from her native country. Emails obtained by The Post through the Maryland Public Information Act show that he directed procurement and health officials to vet various South Korean test makers, focusing on them rather than U.S. suppliers.

On March 28, Hogan asked Yumi to join him on a call with Lee Soo-hyuck, the South Korean ambassador to the United States. The conversation, Hogan said, set in motion negotiations with the South Korean company LabGenomics.

That amounted to almost $19 per test, more expensive than some tests that had become available domestically. At the same time, emails show, some U.S. companies were starting to contact state officials with their own offers.

[MiniMe]

15. Considering Abbott and DeSantis, he did a decent job as a repuke Governor

Not great, but decent. And he hates tRump. He ordered masks and encouraged vaccines and shut things down at the appropriate times.

[FSogol]

16. It is disgusting to see that crook lauded on DU.

[MiniMe]

17. Not lauding him here

Didn't vote for him, and never would. There is a difference between lauding him and acknowledging an OK job.

[sakabatou]

6. It'll probably take years if not decades for the GQP to became sane.

[sarcasmo]

7. Gov. Hogan lives in fantasy land.

[Skittles]

8. let me clue you in on something, Hogan

the "sane GOP" stunk it up, too

[calimary]

9. It's hard to believe that there are sane Republicans.

Seems to me, to be part of that God-forsaken excuse for a political party is proof of NO sanity whatsoever.

[DFW]

10. In American politics of today

I think the phrase "common-sense conservative" has gone the way of "military intelligence." Since to their way of thinking, "conservative" automatically means "Republican," and since the vast majority today's Republicans appear to be completely devoid of common sense, there can be no such thing, by their own definition. I, by nature, am conservative, but there is no way in the world I would ever be "a conservative," not the way they define it. I understand Republicanese, but I never speak it.

As for the rest: "only 50% of the Republicans would like to see Donald Trump run again." If THAT low figure is accurate, it is only because enough of them realize he'd lose again. I'm sure WAY more than 50% of Republicans would like to see him as President again. These are people who would like to see the word "logic" drummed out of the dictionary.

Then there is the slight misspeak: "I believe that there is a pretty large lane of sane Republicans, and they're looking for a voice." Ah, so close, and yet so far away, Governor. What there is, is "a pretty large lane of insane Republicans, and they're looking to be the only voice."

If that means guys like Larry Hogan are out in the political wilderness, shunned and without a tribe, that's their sorry fate. If he looks at a rabid dog, and thinks he sees a hamster, we can offer to treat his wounds after he has been bitten, but there isn't much else we can do about it.

[Walleye]

11. Republicans have a great capacity for believing their own bullshit

The country is not majority conservative.most Americans are fairly liberal

[JHB]

12. Does he mean to go back to the 70s, or does Movement Conservatism not count...

...as a "dear leader."

I mean, any who didn't cowtow to it got the same treatment: ousted where they could be, tolerated but isolated until they retired if they didn't.

[FSogol]

14. Larry Hogan has more in common with Donald Trump than his reputation suggests.

From:

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/01/12/who-does-marylands-governor-really-work-for/

For years, Never Trump Republicans have courted Larry Hogan to run for president. It’s easy to see why. He’s won two gubernatorial elections in Maryland, where Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one; he’s currently one of the most popular governors in America; and he’s widely viewed as a moderate who’s willing to reach across the aisle. The late-night talk-show host Seth Meyers recently described him as “a Republican who believes in climate change.” In June, he’s publishing a memoir—a move that suggests he’s laying the groundwork for a 2024 presidential bid. Last spring, he launched a national advocacy group, An America United, designed to break partisan gridlock and “bring people together to advance bold, common-sense solutions for all Americans.” Simply put, everything about Larry Hogan’s public image would lead you to believe he’s the opposite of Donald Trump.

But Hogan, it turns out, has more in common with Trump than his reputation suggests.

Both are real-estate executives who have refused to relinquish their private businesses while in office. Just as Trump maintained his ownership of the Trump Organization when he became president, Hogan maintained ownership of HOGAN, a multipurpose real-estate brokerage firm, when he became governor. Both have left close family members in charge of their businesses—Trump with his children; Hogan with his brother, Timothy—and created arrangements that allow them to be apprised of the company’s dealings. In other words, they have set up situations in which they can use their powerful government positions to increase their private profits.

As governor, one of Hogan’s signature policies has been to expand state spending on roads, highways, and bridges at the expense of mass transit. His most controversial policy to date was to cancel the Red Line—a planned $2.9 billion metro rail line through Baltimore, for which the state had already acquired land. In the process, Hogan gave up $900 million in federal aid from the Obama administration. As The Baltimore Sun put it, “Hogan freed up hundred [sic] of millions of dollars he plans to use to undertake a significant shift in the state’s transportation priorities from public transit to road projects.”