Time to come clean about my political ambitions. I’m not running for president.
I know, I know. This will surprise no one, not least those among you who never saw me as presidential.
If a triple negative confession confuses you, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s never-ending denial tour must be driving you nuts.
“Well, I, I, I’m not running,” he told The Associated Press in Annapolis. “And people should get very used to me going all around the country bringing business back to Maryland.”
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“I know I’m not running,” he told a reporter during a Democratic love fest in South Carolina.
“I am, uh — I am not running,” he said on TV’s “The View,” emphatically shaking his head. “I’m not.”
“You keep saying that,” co-host Joy Behar implored him. “You’re saying that for sure?”
“I’m not running,” he said. “I’m not.”
Sounds convincing. So why is no one persuaded?
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Because not running for president has a track record of success.
“So,” the late “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert asked in 2006, “you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?”
“I will not,” U.S. Sen. Barack Obama said.
He was running.
Moore, 46, has said he is not running. In the spring of 2025, he has no presidential campaign. That does not mean Maryland’s first-term Democratic governor has closed the door on a future run for president.
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As much as political pundits want you to believe otherwise, 2028 is in the future.
Moore has appeal, certainly with actor George Clooney.
“I think he could be someone we could all join in behind,” the Democratic donor said on CNN. “We have to find someone rather soon.”
No, George, we don’t.
President Donald Trump, tech bro Elon Musk and the rest of the MAGA horde have plenty of time to devour each other. They convinced working voters that billionaires have their interests at heart and now are ready to throw that away with social and tax policies that benefit the richest Americans.
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Democrats have 24 months to find the right political response, including a trial run in the 2026 midterms and plenty of names for a compelling, competitive 2028 primary.
Moore is one of them.
He’s got the charisma thing. He’s got an energetic style primed for going viral. He has an inspiring personal story and a lovely family.
He’s got the change thing, too. He’s young, served in Afghanistan and managed to become the nation’s only Black governor, winning in a state with a history of racial disparity and violence. He hasn’t been in politics long enough to have much baggage, and he says things that Democrats and independents like to hear.
Waiting with plausible deniability has multiple advantages.
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Someone did Moore the favor of leaking the facts of his Bronze Star overreach to The New York Times between election cycles. Bandage ripped off; sting survived.
Vetoing a study of reparations for the descendants of enslaved Marylanders moves him to the political center. It gives him time to come up with alternatives, such as a development bank for descendants, that can have national implications.
And he still has a year to figure out the whole Annapolis thing. I gave him a B recently, but that Moody’s credit rating drop hurts no matter who was at fault.
Navigating uber-powerful Democratic legislative leaders and waves of Washington disruption, scoring a few economic wins and making Maryland’s aimless bureaucracy work better would do wonders with voters.
Saying he is running or might run for president before winning a second term as governor in 2026 would do nothing but cripple Moore at the Maryland polls.
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Do it before 2027 and the governor’s magnificently bald head becomes a target of opportunity for Trump’s potshots, not to mention the slings and arrows of Democrats with their own White House designs.
Genuinely ruling out a run — by reducing his national talk show dance card and giving his frequent flyer miles a rest — would be almost as bad.
Trump’s behavior is so out of the ordinary, so redefining, that what comes next could be even more consequential.
The Democrats are circling the idea of “abundance,” cutting regulations and government inertia to achieve greater prosperity for working Americans.
Musk would have been a hero if he had come in and said, “Hey, I will eliminate waste by making all government websites work better.” Trump would have been a lifesaver if he had tasked Musk with a fix for our air traffic control disaster.
If the Democrats can retake the House of Representatives next year and the White House in 2028, much of the damage that Trump has done to the values of American honesty, generosity, tolerance and strength can be undone.
Overreach, though, and Ben Franklin’s warning about a republic if you can keep it will ring true.
Candidates for president get an outsize say in that conversation. The governor of tiny Maryland, without the relevance of a potential presidential run, does not.
Nobody from Maryland has ever been president. Some have tried. Democrats Albert Ritchie, Martin O’Malley and John Delaney fell short, as did Moore’s predecessor and possible challenger next year, Republican Larry Hogan.
What Moore has right now is something far better than charisma or an open invitation from cable TV hosts: relevance.
Teddy Roosevelt became president after William McKinley’s assassination in 1901. He won a full four-year term in 1904 — and famously said he wouldn’t run again. Yikes.
It instantly made him a lame-duck president, with his fellow Republicans — a different bird than today’s lot — vying to replace him.
Maryland can be a part of the national conversation about what follows Trump. The governor’s ambitions, real or not, make that possible.
Moore for president? You’ll hear more about it.
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