The "not listed" candidate I'd prefer/vote for is Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland (I selected the "other" answer choice in the poll). He's shown a knack for navigating Covid in a way that seems to have pretty strong support among his constituents from both parties. That shows me he's able to govern in a more unified manner. ...
Direct Headline:
Who Does Maryland’s Governor Really Work For?
Larry Hogan has more in common with Donald 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 ...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.”
Hogan has advanced a number of major state transportation projects that are near properties his company owns, a development that can boost the value of those properties. Before canceling the Red Line, he approved construction of an interchange down the road from a parcel of land his company controlled. Later, he approved millions of dollars in road and sidewalk improvements near property he had bought approximately two years earlier and was turning into a housing development....Hogan’s real-estate business has only grown while he has been in office. In 2014, the year
before he became governor, his company had ownership in 30 real-estate limited-liability companies, or LLCs, according to his financial-disclosure forms.
Now, he has 43....But Hogan has not revealed payments he has received from specific real-estate transactions while in office.
“He’s getting paid by developers all across the state—who he’s in charge of regulating in one way or another—and the public has no idea who they are”...Hogan’s income has far exceeded his official yearly government salary of roughly $180,000. From 2015 to 2018, his first three years as governor, he made a total of roughly $2.4 million, according to his tax returns for those years, which he released during his 2018 reelection campaign. But
he has refused to release his returns for the years before he became governor, much like Donald Trump, giving the public no way to compare his earnings before and after he ascended to Annapolis. In addition, the tax returns Hogan has released do not include attached statements detailing the sources of his private income, effectively hiding what entities were paying him. ....The amount he’s made while in office is unprecedented...
Hogan has made more money as governor than any other governor in the history of the state— and is the only one to have made millions of dollars while in office....But Hogan’s trust is not blind. The ethics commission granted the governor a “financial-interest exemption,”
which allows him to continue to own real-estate projects and to be apprised of his company’s business dealings, as well as how much money he’s making... the arrangement “will not prevent me from requesting or receiving information about the status of the Hogan Companies . . . including the status of its current investments and... the identity of the investors and the locations of real property in which the Hogan Companies have an investment.”.... it was “misleading” to even call the arrangement a trust because Hogan is kept fully apprised of his investments and assets.
“He owns it, he will benefit from it, he is not shielded from knowledge of what the holdings are....”
by Eric Cortellessa January 12, 2020
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/01/12/who-does-marylands-governor-really-work-for/
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Larry Hogan would get eaten alive in a general cycle. He's touted by those who would never ever vote for him. He would immediately be attacked by the Progressives and establishment Black America. This would daisy chain the identity politics machine and the activist MSM to chew him up.
The biggest beneficiary of Hogan getting the RNC ticket wouldn't be the American people, it would be Stacey Abrams, who could get some media optics relief from all the dark money dealings she's scooped up and can't hide since she lost her Governor's race.
There's a common theme here - Radical leftists believe the only elected officials whom call themselves true Republicans are those who openly denounce Trump and then are willing to be human political punching bags later for a general cycle. I laugh when I see Mitt Romney's name tossed up in here like he's a ground and pound unit leader for the Rebel Alliance. Romney got torn apart in his general cycle, it's not like if he magically got the ticket that it wouldn't happen again.
Everyone has their free speech.
But some zealots clearly just want a human kick ball to present for empty virtue signaling. If you won't vote for them then how powerful are the accolades that you will give them just for not being Trump?