Republican Hilton tells Californians they can hate Trump but still vote for him in governor's race

Steve Hilton is running a strange little experiment out there, and it's actually worth paying attention to. He's telling California voters, most of whom can't stand Trump, that they don't have to like the president to vote for a Republican governor. That's not a typical pitch. Most GOP candidates in blue states either run from Trump entirely or wrap themselves in him and hope for the best. Hilton is doing neither. He's asking voters to separate their feelings about Washington from the actual condition of their state, which, if you've driven through California lately, is not a hard case to make.

It's a bet on exhaustion more than persuasion. Hilton isn't trying to change anyone's mind about Trump. He's betting that enough Californians are tired of the potholes, the homelessness, the housing prices, and the one-party rule in Sacramento that they'll hold their nose on national politics to get competent management at the state level. That's a rational thing to test in a place where Republicans haven't won a governor's race in ages, and where "anti-Trump" hasn't exactly translated into better roads or lower rents.

Whether it works is a different question. California voters have shown they can hold two thoughts at once, but they've also shown they'll punish anything with an "R" next to it out of pure reflex. Still, there's something honest about Hilton's approach compared to the usual dodge-and-weave. He's not pretending Trump isn't controversial. He's just arguing that governing a state isn't the same job as picking a president, and that voters ought to be smart enough to tell the difference. That's a more respectful message to Democrats than most Republicans bother sending.

If nothing else, it's a useful test case for the rest of the country. Plenty of red-leaning candidates in blue territory could learn something from watching whether "you can hate him and still vote sensibly" actually moves people, or whether tribal loyalty wins out no matter how the pitch is framed.