Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is an attractive 2020 rescue vessel, should the SS Trump sink

Donald Trump’s presidency has struck an iceberg on both sides of its hull. Starboard, with the indictment of Roger Stone, special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation is circling ever closer to the president himself. Port side, the disastrous 35-day government shutdown has left a growing number of Republican pols unlashing themselves from the SS Trump's mast and searching for life jackets. The question now, as we enter another presidential election cycle, is whether they will actually jump off the foundering ship.

An increasingly attractive rescue vessel sailing by is Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of heavily Democratic Maryland, who according to multiple news reports is contemplating a 2020 primary challenge to Trump. 

Of course, with Trump’s total domination of the GOP and the national conversation, Hogan and the others most frequently mentioned — such as Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich — seem like guppies up against a shark. But that could change, and Hogan would be positioned well for a challenge.

If Trump is a scraping-from-the-bottom-of-the-barrel excuse of a human being — an ignorant, entitled, dishonest, braggadocious thug — Hogan, in character, policy and political appeal, is in every respect the reverse, in full measure an anti-Trump and more.

Trump, of course, was born with a golden spoon in his mouth. For decades, he has used his inherited fortune to posture as a successful businessman, running serial scams (like Trump University) and bringing about serial bankruptcies (like the Trump Taj Mahal casino).  

Read more commentary:

How billionaires like Schultz and Bloomberg can help America: Don't run for president

Howard Schultz: A third-party centrist candidate like me could win the presidency

How the Democrats could blow it in 2020

Before he won elective office in 2014, Hogan, 62, was also a businessman. Hogan Companies, however, is not a shell game but a genuinely successful real estate firm with $2 billion in transactions under its account, built from the ground up, without daddy’s largesse. Hogan, though born into a political family, made his own way up.

Hogan did inherit one extremely valuable thing from his father. Lawrence Hogan Sr., a onetime FBI agent, represented Maryland in Congress. In 1974, he was the first Republican on the House Judiciary Committee to call for President Richard Nixon’s impeachment. His readiness to put country before party is something his son regularly mentions in speeches.

The implication for Trump is left clear but unsaid. That episode taught a lesson in fidelity to principle, which goes a considerable distance in explaining why Hogan is one of the few Republican elected officials who has never endorsed let alone truckled to the weakling bully in the White House.  

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to private life, the contrast between the two men is stark. Trump is a serial philanderer/sexual predator whose partners include multiple wives and a paid-off porn star. Hogan has been married only once, and he and his wife, Yumi Hogan — a first generation Korean-American — have never given the tabloids any occasion to visit their marriage.

Hogan style is civility and moderation

More centrally, Trump has both campaigned and governed by stoking racial and religious resentment, allowing him to gain and retain the fierce loyalty of a narrow base of disaffected voters. Hogan’s philosophy is "to govern with civility and moderation” and so he has, regularly reaching across the aisle of the Annapolis statehouse to advance a bipartisan agenda.

Trump is renowned for “the art of the deal,” but that is a marketing slogan cooked up by a ghost writer. It has never borne any relation to Trump’s long career of shady business practices burnished only by boastfulness.

Hogan, for his part, speaks of the “art of the possible.” His political pragmatism is precisely what has made him a success. His signature initiatives don't grab headlines — like walling off Mexico or banning Muslims from entering the United States — but they are the unsexy work of good government: development of infrastructure, stewardship of the environment, innovation in K-12 education, access to affordable health care and fiscal responsibility.

As a national candidate, Hogan has his liabilities. In this age of celebrities, his is hardly a household name. His reasoned brand of charisma would not rouse crowds to chant demagogic slogans at rallies. His foreign policy experience is a blank that would need to be filled. His 2015 diagnosis of lymphoma, now pronounced in complete remission, will raise worries over his long-term health.  

Trump's troubles are mounting

Of course, whether Hogan or any Republican could launch a successful primary challenge is in doubt as long as Trump’s cult of personality does not crack and approval of the president among Republicans hovers in the 80s. Even so, the fluidity of American politics and Trump’s mounting troubles raise the possibility of the SS Trump sinking abruptly to the bottom of the sea.

Should that come about, and were Hogan to emerge against long odds as the Republican nominee, he would likely prove to be a formidable force in a general election, particularly if the Democrats lurched left.

Hogan regularly ranks as one of the most popular governors in the country, drawing support from Democratic and Republican voters alike, and earning approval numbers in the 70s. Running for re-election last November, Hogan beat Democrat Ben Jealous by 12 percentage points, a striking accomplishment in one of the country’s bluest states.

Of course, at this early stage, Hogan must be considered, as other potential Republican challengers, an exceedingly long shot. Nonetheless, anyone who wants to glean the future of American politics should prepare to hear more from this serious and determined man.

Gabriel Schoenfeld, a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and the author of "Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law," was a senior adviser to the 2012 Romney for President campaign. Follow him on Twitter: @gabeschoenfeld