The New York Times notes that while Liz Cheney cited “serious health issues” in her family as
the reason for dropping her Senate race, her problems were much larger.
“She ran in a state that she had not lived in for
decades rather than in her longtime home state, Virginia, she targeted a
genial and well-liked incumbent with no glaring ideological
vulnerabilities, and she carried the banner of a hawkish foreign policy
at a moment when a more restrained approach to national security is
ascendant in the Republican Party. Further, she prompted an ugly and
public split with her lesbian sister, Mary, by declaring her opposition
to same-sex marriage — and was nevertheless attacked with television ads
by a third-party conservative group over gay rights. Most of all,
though, Ms. Cheney miscalculated the degree to which her father’s
popularity among conservatives was transferable to her own race.”
