Carl P. Leubsdorf: A study in contrasts of where the 2 parties are going

When Washington’s Gridiron Club announced that Mallory McMorrow would be the Democratic speaker at its winter dinner, a surprising number of the political correspondents in its ranks were baffled.

Even some regular Twitter users were unaware of the Michigan state senator, whose fame exploded in social media circles and the broader political universe last April after she pointedly challenged a Republican who accused her of wanting to “groom and sexualize kindergartners.”

Now, the members of Washington’s oldest journalistic organization know, after her well-received speech Saturday that stressed the importance of state legislatures and Michigan’s growing political power on the weekend it finally won its 20-year fight for an early presidential primary.

“For the first time in four decades, we flipped the Michigan legislature,” she said. “Michigan is a Blue Trifecta heading into 2024.”

Her Republican counterpart was Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a traditional GOP conservative with a long political resume. Neither a Trumper nor a never-Trumper, he hopes to become the party’s 2024 presidential nominee as a “commonsense conservative.”

He was introduced in a song that called him “sane … in a party where everyone acts like a brat,” and asked: “Do you know what the hell you are getting into?” More importantly, will his reputation for moderation help or hurt his nascent candidacy?

Though both did well, the evening’s primary takeaway was that we had seen a contrast between the Democratic future — a 36-year-old state senator who entered politics in reaction to Donald Trump’s 2016 victory — and the Republican past — a 72-year-old political veteran who exemplifies the pre-Trump GOP.

McMorrow is just one of an array of promising officeholders from a state that is becoming a Democratic powerhouse like Texas once was and California is. For the first time since before she was born, she noted, Democrats control both legislative houses and all top statewide offices, led by reelected Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

It’s the home of three promising Democratic leaders — Whitmer, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and McMorrow — at a time the election of a new generation of U.S. House leaders epitomizes the party’s thirst for younger leadership.

Whitmer, 51, reelected by 10 points where Joe Biden won by under 3, was seriously considered by Biden as his running mate before he picked California Sen. Kamala Harris,

Given widespread doubts about Harris’ viability as a future presidential candidate, Whitmer remains on any short list of possible contenders if the 80-year-old Biden doesn’t run in 2024.

Buttigieg, 40, who was mayor of South Bend Indiana, when he began his long-shot 2020 quest, moved to the home state of his husband, Chasten, ostensibly so the latter’s parents could help baby-sit their two adopted infants.

But it won’t hurt any future presidential bid — and most Democrats expect one — to come from a vibrant Democratic state instead of solidly red Indiana. Buttigieg looks even more prescient with the Democratic Party’s Rules Committee proposal that Michigan replace Iowa in the primary lineup.

Fellow Democrats currently block McMorrow’s path to higher office, so her focus is on how state Democrats govern. On Saturday, though, she brought highly regarded New York political consultant Lis Smith, who also still advises 2020 client Buttigieg.

McMorrow seems comfortable with the celebrity status she attained barely eight months ago. That’s when she arose in the state Senate to denounce references to her in a Republican colleague’s fundraising letter that she said epitomizes the GOP fixation with social issues.

“I am a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom who knows that the very notion that learning about slavery or redlining or systemic racism somehow means that children are being taught to feel bad or hate themselves because they are white is absolute nonsense,” she declared in the speech that went viral on Twitter. It helped her raise $2.2 million for her reelection campaign and elevated her above colleagues with longer political resumes.

In last month’s election, she polled 79% in her suburban Detroit district and was named the state Senate’s majority whip.

She was chosen for Saturday night’s appearance because the Gridiron Club likes to have up-and-comers address its semi-annual dinners, especially the smaller December one for members and partners only. In 2004, its Democratic speaker was Illinois Sen.-elect Barack Obama; in 2010, the Republican was Indiana Rep. Mike Pence.

Both speakers mixed shots at the opposition with barbs toward their own. Hutchinson said of Trump that “in between his dinner parties and his calling and working for the Constitution to be re-written, he let us know his preferred pronouns: They are me, my and mine.”

McMorrow, noting that she was “representing so many of the young people shaping the future of the Democratic Party,” said, “I know that in four short decades and only after we’re eligible to receive Social Security, our time will come to run for national office.”

Recalling Biden’s call after her speech, she said, “He’s so sweet. He reminds me of my father’s … father.”

She praised Hutchinson for prosecuting, as a U.S. attorney, the leader of a group of white supremacists and added “your veto of the anti-trans legislation passed by your general assembly was brave and honorable,” though it was subsequently overridden.

Both represent the hopes of many for greater civility and less acrimony in public life. But Hutchinson epitomizes a GOP that may no longer exist and McMorrow represents a Democratic Party that is just emerging.