Tucker Carlson Will Run for President

Don’t blame it on me. It wasn’t my idea, but the cards as they’re laid out are telling me that’s what’s likely to happen.

Consider the present situation

Public opinion polls are showing that 60% of Republicans do not want Donald Trump to run, 70% of just about everyone thinks Joe Biden is too old and somewhere near that percentage are unhappy having a choice between two ancient white men. Ron DeSantis has shown himself to be pretty much a buffoon, although we’ve shown that limitation to be agreeable from time to time.

That’s a lot of known unknowns and unknown unknowns, as Donald Rumsfeld would have said.

Given these circumstances, the political gods that run back-room American politics chose this particular time to unhorse champion cowboy Tucker Carlson over at the Fox News rodeo. No one knows how these circumstances came to coincide. It may have been bad planning. It may have been simply a Rupert Murdoch temper tantrum. It may be that the gods just threw up their hands in despair, said “why the hell not?” and stumbled off to bed.

But the staging is sublime and I can’t wait to see the choreography

Tucker is 52 years old, a well brought up child of the best schools, silver-spoon never far from his side and reasonably attractive, save for his hysterical giggle. And a bit of coaching can work that out of him. His audience at Fox at the time of his firing was said to equal a tad over 3.5 million viewers and that’s one hell of a tad, making him the highest rated cable news presenter.

Carlson has the protection, if you choose to call it that, of having always maintained that raised eyebrow of ‘maybe I’m pulling your leg.’ That will stand him well in debates. And, debate-wise, I’m sorry to admit, if he’s on the stage, he will tear Joe Biden to pieces.

If we’re drifting toward ‘entertainer for president’ territory, why not go whole hog?

After all, we once had an actor for president, although he’d also been a two-term governor of California. Tucker Carlson throwing his hat in the ring on the right, Stephen Colbert on the left, might actually energize a national political conversation that has long been missing—missing as in non-existent these past 40 years.

We don’t talk politics among ourselves anymore, at least not in any sense of caring to hear the other side of issues. That’s probably because we tend more and more to live among our political peers, and by that I mean peers in its most restrictive and inbred meaning. We work at  companies, send our kids to schools and live in neighborhoods that reflect our liberal or conservative leanings.

That may be comfortable, but makes either for toxic conversations or holding our tongues in wider circles.

But for the moment, we’re discussing Tucker and he’s gone quiet—uncharacteristically quiet

Methinks there’s a purpose in that and the purpose is to test the waters of campaign contributions. That can’t be done in a day, but I suspect the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Where does the rightwing money have to go? Certainly not to Trump or DeSantis. Money seeks out power and wants the phone picked up when it makes a call. That’s why Tucker will attract money from the left as well. If he is likely to win, liberals want their calls answered as well. So I suspect the dough is rolling in and Tucker won’t let too much more grass grow before he jumps in the primary race.

I’m of two minds on the Carlson candidacy

On the one hand, if Donald Trump remains out of jail and loses the primary race for the Republican ticket, there’s a way better than average chance his ego will make him run as an independent. That would likely scuttle both Tucker and the Republican Party in the general election and perhaps for decades to come.

On the other hand (there is always an other hand), if Trump picks up his marbles and sulks back to Mar a Lago, it seems to me that Carlson might win easily. Looking desperately for an upside to that, I remember Tucker once had far more liberal leanings than he has shown since joining Fox.

There’s a telling incident as told by Jason Zengerle in a recent NYTimes Guest Essay:

“When Mr. Carlson met with Roger Ailes in 2009 to discuss a job at Fox News, Mr. Carlson’s career was at a nadir. He’d been let go from both CNN and MSNBC. He’d developed a game show pilot for CBS that wasn’t picked up. His stint on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” lasted just one episode. His finances were so stretched that he’d decided to sell his suburban New Jersey mansion out from under his wife and four children.

“You’re a loser and you screwed up your whole life,” Mr. Ailes told Mr. Carlson, according to an account of the conversation Mr. Carlson later gave to his friend, the former Dick Cheney adviser Neil Patel. “But you have talent. And the only thing you have going for you is that I like hiring talented people who have screwed things up for themselves and learned a lesson, because once I do, you’re gonna work your ass off for me.”

Roger Ailes is gone and Fox News is on a downslide that no one can predict

But Tucker outlasted them both, if you count being fired as outlasting.

He did work his ass off for Ailes, but having done so, we hardly know how much of Tucker’s years at Fox were Tucker and how much were his commitment to Roger Ailes. That’s an unknown worth pondering. Whatever the facts may be, we will soon know what the old rodeo cowboy has in mind for his next time out of the gate.

It may be many things, but I doubt it will be boring.