Arizona senator Jeff Flake, a man who manages to appear in every photo as if he is on the verge of tears, is drawing rave reviews for the latest performance in his one-man traveling show, "Hey, Some Good Republicans Exist, Look at Me, America!" In remarks at the National Press Club on Thursday, the retiring legislator very earnestly opined that if his party continues to take refuge in "the alternative truth of an erratic leader," then it "might not deserve to lead." And in New Hampshire—hmmm—on Friday, he lambasted the GOP's embrace of "what can only be described as a propaganda-fueled dystopian view of conservatism." Sensing that a standing ovation was but a pithy, bumper-sticker slogan away, he concluded: "There will have to be an American restoration."

This is the closest Flake has come to going public with his months-long stealth campaign for the 2020 presidential nomination, and on Thursday, he laid out all the dots in the hopes that people will start connecting them for him. "I do think and I do hope that a Republican will challenge the president," he opined. When asked about the chances that that unnamed someone turns out to be him, Flake let out a practiced guffaw. "Running for president is not in my plans. I haven't ruled it out."

Mmmhmm.

When Flake announced his retirement last year, he made a big show of making clear that for the remaining 14 months of his term, he would be "guided only by the dictates of conscience." Since then, he has attempted to walk an impossibly thin line in Washington, loudly bemoaning things like White House "chaos" and the death of "civility" even as he backs President Trump on just about every issue of substance. When Alabama was waffling between Roy Moore and Doug Jones, Flake eagerly tweeted a picture of the check he wrote to the candidate who wasn't a credibly accused child abuser. When it came time to vote on, say, the repeal of a rule that had banned forced arbitration between consumers and gigantic financial institutions, though, he quietly did what the president wanted.

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This was always going to be a tricky position for Flake to stake out, because no one should have expected him to announce his retirement and then return to work the next day as a newly-minted Democrat, retweeting Barack Obama and replacing the miniature American flag on his lapel with an extra-large safety pin. He's still a Republican, and for most Americans, "supporting a conservative agenda" and "not supporting Donald Trump" are not mutually exclusive.

But Flake, unlike most Americans, is a United States senator, a role that places him in a unique position to oppose Donald Trump with something more than a withheld general election vote. And whether he likes it or not, support for an agenda is inextricably intertwined with the people who promote it. Every one of his dutiful "ayes" on the Senate floor functions as a tacit endorsement of the administration because it enables something he claims to abhor. Jeff Flake wants to be the Mature Voice of Reason, but only for so long as that task requires zero moral courage when presented with meaningful opportunities to act on those oft-professed beliefs.

This is a good strategy to follow if you want to score a sweet book deal and have your speeches trend on social media. It is a bad strategy, though, if you are seriously pondering a presidential bid, and need something to which you will be able to point as evidence that all your lofty words were anything more than just that.