ELECTION/GOP/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Mark Sanford, the former Republican governor of South Carolina who once brought squealing pigs into the State Capitol to make a point about pork barrel spending, is running against President Trump because of his failure to cut government waste. ‘He’s not delivering on what he said he was going to do, which is eliminate the debt,’ Mr. Sanford, who is also a former congressman, said in an interview. ‘In fact, it has gone in the opposite direction.’ Joe Walsh, the former Tea Party congressman from Illinois and a onetime Trump supporter who says he has now seen the light, is challenging the president as a moral mission. ‘I think he’s unfit and a danger to the country,’ he said in an interview. ‘I do believe that most Republicans privately feel that way. This campaign is going to try and get them to say it publicly.’ And William F. Weld, the former Massachusetts governor, is staking his long-shot presidential hopes on appealing to moderates in New Hampshire, for whom supporting a pro-abortion rights, pro-legalized marijuana libertarian could be a meaningful protest vote against Mr. Trump.”
–Annie Karni and Jonathan Martin, “‘3 Musketeers’ or ‘3 Stooges’? Republicans Running Against Trump May Fall in Between,” The New York Times online, September 19, 2019