In an ordinary presidential-primary season, the indictment of a front-runner over hush money paid to a porn actress would, at the least, be an opening for rivals to attack. But a day after the arraignment of former U.S. President Donald Trump on 34 felony counts, one thing was clear: This will not be an ordinary political season.
The failure of Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination to go on offense — indeed, their willingness to defend him — underscored the centrality of the former president in the GOP. His opponents appeared to be using the same playbook that a crowded field of White House hopefuls ran in 2016, laying back, absorbing Trump’s blows and hoping external factors would take him down.
"The sad thing is that so many people accept it as part of the character and conduct of the former president,” Asa Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas who on Sunday announced that he was running for the Republican presidential nomination, said of the charges. "That’s not something from a candidate perspective that I’m wanting to dwell on.”