Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Sarah Huckabee’s State of the Union response Tuesday night will mark the payoff of an extraordinary bet that many Republicans took in 2016 \u2014 that they could hitch themselves to Donald Trump, accumulate power in the process and, ultimately, outlive the most unsavory parts of the association.<\/p>\n
It hasn\u2019t always worked. In competitive states and districts, several of Trump\u2019s chosen candidates flopped in the midterms. And there\u2019s a whole fraternity of Trump allies \u2014 people like Rudy Giuliani, Roger Stone and Steve Bannon \u2014 who have found themselves embroiled in legal and political scandal.<\/p>\n
But among those who did prosper, Sanders ranks among the richest. The former press secretary is now the governor of Arkansas, having leapfrogged dues-paying politicians who would have, in another era, been frontrunners for the post. And on Tuesday night, she will be bracketing Biden on behalf of the Republican Party \u2014 a massive responsibility for the most watched political address of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost Republicans clearly didn\u2019t get hurt by their association with Trump,\u201d said Saul Anuzis, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party. \u201cThey probably even benefited from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delivering the State of the Union response is, by most accounts, a dreadful gig, one filled with political tripwire. The most memorable speeches are recalled for all the wrong reasons: a bit of spittle on one\u2019s lips, a frantic lurch for a water bottle at the table nearby.<\/p>\n
But getting tapped for the response is still an honor. And it does give a snapshot for where the opposition party is trending at that moment in time. When Sanders delivers her address it will provide a healthy reminder that Trump\u2019s impact on the GOP is likely to last for generations, even if many Republicans claim they\u2019re ready to move on from him.<\/p>\n
Kevin McCarthy<\/a> \u2014 \u201cmy Kevin<\/a>,\u201d as Trump once called him \u2014 will be standing behind Biden during his address. In attendance will be members of Congress including Ryan Zinke<\/a> of Montana, a Trump-era Interior secretary, and Max Miller<\/a> of Ohio, a former Trump aide. Ronna McDaniel, who went so far as to jettison the family name<\/a> to remain in Trump\u2019s good graces, last month was re-elected chair of the Republican National Committee.<\/p>\n Several former Trump administration officials are poised to run for president, including Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley. Even Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, now Trump\u2019s chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, has Trump to thank for the distinction. He would likely be a little-known former congressman had he not ingratiated himself to Trump in his gubernatorial primary in 2018.<\/p>\n Indeed, DeSantis may have provided the template for Sanders to follow. Then-Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam had worked his way through GOP circles and appeared likely to win the party\u2019s nomination<\/a> before DeSantis got Trump\u2019s attention with his frequent Fox News hits defending his presidency.<\/p>\n None of Republican politicians enjoying Trump-adjacent rises are without selling points of their own. Sanders, daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, benefited from a lineage recognizable to conservatives in her home state. And selecting her to respond to Biden on Tuesday may help Republicans to reconnect with suburban women, who fled the GOP in the Trump era. In an appeal to Latinos, with whom Trump made modest gains during his tenure, Rep. Juan Ciscomani<\/a>, of Arizona, will deliver a Spanish-language response.<\/p>\n Heralding the two lawmakers\u2019 appearances, House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik<\/a> \u2014 the New York Republican whose own MAGA conversion elevated her stature in Congress \u2014 said on Twitter that the GOP \u201cembodies the American dream<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n But in the Republican Party, there is another dream in the post-Trump era, too: Riding the Trump fervor to a place of prominence, and then \u2014 after two impeachments, Trump\u2019s loss of the White House in 2020, and a disappointing midterm \u2014 living to make something more of it.<\/p>\n Sanders, said John Thomas, a Republican strategist who runs a pro-DeSantis super PAC, \u201cwas able to navigate Trump-world and come out the other side of it.\u201d<\/p>\n He described her as drawing a \u201croadmap to success in the post-Trump Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n Prior to joining the Trump White House, Sanders had been a fairly standard political operative. She worked for several campaigns, including her father\u2019s, and was not considered a MAGA diehard. But she embraced the role, fought aggressively with the press, and earned Trump\u2019s trust in the process. It was her experience in that position that she leaned on heavily<\/a> when she got into the GOP primary last year, as much as she did her political lineage.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just that [Sanders] was literally the voice of Donald Trump in those early, heady days, but she also has the Huckabee name, and conservative Republican primary voters know the Huckabee name,\u201d said Janine Parry, who runs the Arkansas Poll, a survey housed at the University of Arkansas in Sanders\u2019 home state. \u201cShe\u2019s old-school Republican but not old-school Republican. She\u2019s Trump \u2014 but not Trump-Republican \u2026 She does kind of straddle two worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n And how does a Republican straddle them? Right now, Sanders does what a lot of Republicans are doing \u2014 stating a fondness for Trump while skirting any question about whether they want him to be president again.<\/p>\n \u201cI love the president,” Sanders said on Fox News last month<\/a>, when asked if she would endorse Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign. However, she said, \u201cRight now, my focus isn\u2019t 2024, it\u2019s focusing here, in Arkansas.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement announcing her State of the Union<\/a> engagement, Sanders said she will contrast \u201cthe GOP\u2019s optimistic vision for the future against the failures of President Biden and the Democrats.\u201d It\u2019s early in her post-Trump career, still. And as the opinion editor of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette put it over the weekend, \u201cshe’s not held elective offices of any kind before.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat exactly is it that recommends her to be, for one night, the standard bearer for the national Republican Party?\u201d wrote the editor, Greg Harton.<\/p>\n Eventually, though, Sanders will have a post-Trump record. She is already starting to assemble one. On her first day as governor, she signed an executive order<\/a> banning use of the term “Latinx” in state government documents, and issued other directives involving critical race theory and TikTok<\/a> \u2014 all conservative-pleasing measures.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s not sitting around in an office waiting for the phone to ring for people to ask her what she thinks about an issue,\u201d said Robert Coon, a Republican strategist based in Little Rock, Ark. \u201cShe\u2019s running a state.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump may have elevated her profile, Coon added, but eventually, like everyone who makes it to the other side of their Trump experience, she will forge some record of her own. \u201cMake no mistake, it\u2019s about her,\u201d said Coon. \u201cShe\u2019s tremendously talented. She understands politics. She\u2019s incredibly smart.\u201d<\/p>\n