Check out the following exchange between Wall Street Journal editor at-large Gerard Baker and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, speaking earlier today at this event at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica, California:
Baker: “So, final question, and you’ve seen this coming for the last 30 minutes but I’m going to ask it [anyway]. So, given all that you’ve said and…”
Youngkin: “I was trying to run the clock out.”
Baker: “I saw that, but I’m in charge here at least for the moment, so I’m going to get another 30 seconds out of you. Given all that you’ve said and all that’s that’s gone wrong in our politics and all that you’ve managed to achieve, are you going to be dusting off that fleece jacket and getting out on the presidential campaign trail later this year?”
Youngkin: “No.”
Baker: “You’re not running?”
Youngkin: “I’m gonna be working. I’m going to be working in Virginia this year. I have my midterms this year, you know we’re off cycle. And so our House and Senate are up for full re-election this year. I have a House that’s controlled by Republicans in a Senate that’s controlled by Democrats. I want to hold our House and I’d like to flip our Senate. And I think we’re doing a really good job in Virginia and I think this is a chance to bring that to voters. And so I haven’t written a book and I’m not in Iowa. I’m spending time representing Virginians this year.
Baker: “So in the words of LBJ, you will not seek and if nominated you will not serve and accept the Republican nomination for president of the United States?” [note: this is what’s known as a “Shermanesque statement“; also invoked by LBJ in his address to the nation on March 31, 1968, in which he announced that he wouldn’t be running for reelection in that November’s presidential election]
Youngkin: “We’ll leave that one to LBJ…”
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