The Gator Missed

But he's still there!

The No Good Very Bad Twitter Space:

Ron DeSantis is running for President of the United States!

If that exclamation point seems out of place to you, you aren’t alone. We’ve known for a while that he was going to run. We’ve known for a while that he’s the only real possible challenger to Trump. And now we know, personality and showmanship isn’t going to be his strong suit… nor is there apparently going to be even a wisp of a sense of humor in his campaign.

There are two ways to look at this. I can spin it, or I can tell you the truth. I try to always tell the truth, so I’ll just give it to you straight. The event was an unmitigated screw up.

First, let’s get the technical issues out of the way. Yes, the Twitter Spaces faced some technical difficulties… which isn’t perfect, but frankly wouldn’t have been a big deal if those difficulties were followed by a great introduction to Ron DeSantis. That also didn’t happen. As it turned out, the technical glitches were the highlight of the event. In short, it was boring. Really boring. Bitcoin nerds meet Supreme Court geeks does not an entertaining event make.

I’ll say it at the outset. I love the people involved in this. I am a giant Elon Musk fan. I’m also a fan of David Sacks. But why in the world Sacks decided to go on a 10 minute blithering Elon Musk ass kissing session before even introducing Ron DeSantis is one of those mysteries that will never be solved. Seriously, was he drunk? Did he do mushrooms before getting on the air? There must be an explanation for this.

Then, after Sacks’ rambling horror show of an opening, why Ron DeSantis went into a four minute canned stump speech that could have been both written and delivered by Chat GPT will remain yet another mystery. If you’re going to do the stump speech, do it on the stump! Just hold a rally to ten thousand cheering Floridians and give the damn stump speech. It’s a fine speech, but following the Twitter commercial it just seemed awkward, inauthentic, and annoying.

I’m miffed at Elon for not having working tech. I’m peeved at DeSantis and his team for picking this venue as his launch platform in the first place. But between us, I am angriest at David Sacks for his, frankly, inappropriate behavior. There’s just no other way to put it. Then as if that were not enough, just as we finally seemed to move on from listening to Sacks fellate Elon Musk, Thomas Massie decided to use the first couple of minutes of his “question” for the candidate to talk about how much he likes his Tesla and how he built something called a “power wall”. (That’s about the time I almost turned the thing off… but I stuck in there.)

While this event would have been fine as a mid campaign waste of time in a few weeks, it was a complete flop as a roll out event. I can tell you one thing… the only person listening to that horror show who enjoyed it, lives at Mar-a-Lago.

Okay… that’s the bad news. The Silicon Valley Autistic Billionaires Guild (SVABG) is not a good place to launch a political campaign. It came off like an NPR interview of high minded but distracted people whispering into a microphone. It was boring, strange, and did not endear anyone to the candidate. Overall it was a no good, very bad thing.

The gator launched and missed. Now all the monkeys are slapping the water, gibbering and laughing. Lesson learned. Don’t miss again.

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Some positive points:

I thought DeSantis came off as serious and disciplined, smart, and calm. I think he’s correct in his positions. I think he was even keeled in the midst of a rough event. I guess it was probably a good thing that he didn’t curse Thomas Massie and David Sacks out on the phone in front of several hundred thousand people… I also think he’s going to have to do a lot more than this if he wants the chance to face Joe Biden in November, because this isn’t going to topple Donald Trump. Not even close.

All that said, I do think Ron DeSantis can and will win this thing. I honestly believe he can beat Donald Trump, and I know he can beat Joe Biden, who is unelectable running against anyone other than Trump. This race isn’t going to be won with viral videos or on Twitter (obviously). It’s going to be won in the streets and with grassroots. It’s going to be won voter by voter and state by state. Ron DeSantis knows how to win this kind of fight. He’s an expert at this kind of fight. In the end, he’ll find his groove and pull this out.

Let’s dig into how.

People don’t understand Ron DeSantis… yet

I’ve tried explaining the DeSantis energy to a few friends of mine who just don’t seem to get it. Both on the right and on the left, smart friends of mine seem to think that Ron DeSantis is just another Republican challenger who will go down in a sea of nicknames and trolling from Trump’s minions. If you are a person who thinks that, you don’t understand Ron DeSantis.

It’s a perfectly forgivable mistake to make. He still hasn’t introduced himself to the American people. Pretty much the only thing Americans at large have seen of DeSantis are hit pieces from the left calling him the ‘Literally Hitler of Florida’ who sends people to prison for saying the word “gay”… that he burns books, throws rocks at trans people, and basically just sits in Tallahassee making up new racist jokes to tell at his Klan meeting on the weekends. (Well we know that last part isn’t true… Ron DeSantis apparently doesn’t tell jokes of any kind)

The other attacks have been from the Trump loving right who call him a RINO (Republican In Name Only, for those of you in Rio Linda), say he’s disloyal to Trump, claim he doesn’t have a prayer of winning, and basically just throw refurbished old Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz attack lines at him. By next week they’ll be saying he looks like the Zodiac Killer or that his dad killed JFK. It’s an old game at this point… and while it might tickle the Trump loyalists, it’s not that entertaining anymore, and certainly isn’t bringing in new Trump supporters.

For his part, DeSantis has been incredibly disciplined… some would say too disciplined. He has refrained from attacking Trump directly. He has quietly been building a coalition of money and power that he will need if he plans to unseat The King. He has ignored polling, basically ignored the mainstream press, and watched the most important thing in any primary season… the calendar.

Ron DeSantis is a man of vision and character. He is unconcerned with schoolyard bullies. He’s not the first person to try an rise above Trump like this, but unlike the politicians who came before him like Cruz or Rubio, Ron has a secret.

Sticking with the schoolyard bully metaphor, Ron DeSantis is secretly a world class heavyweight cage fighter, and he’s about to take the bully’s head off. He’s been called names and pushed around and been made fun of all year, but the bell just rang and he’s headed to the parking lot for a fight. The bully thinks he is going to beat him up, but he could not be more wrong. Ron is going to leave that parking lot with the bully’s girlfriend in tow, and all the kids will be cheering his name.

Can he really win? How?

Let’s get into the nuts and bolts of this thing:

The Calendar:

The Iowa caucuses, or as Rush used to say, the Hawkeye Cauci, aren’t until January of next year, and DeSantis is looking GREAT in Iowa.

The next week is New Hampshire, the state that should have been in play for 2022 but flat out rejected MAGA loyalist Don Bolduc. Then comes South Carolina. The Palmetto State could be a challenge, but I still like Ron’s chances there. He’s going to be spending a hell of a lot of money down there and his grass roots efforts will be way better than Trump’s. Charleston republicans, Low Country Republicans, Tim Scott should be in his corner by then… Miss Lindsey can do what he wants. All in all, DeSantis has a real shot in South Carolina.

It is very possible that he could be going into Super Tuesday 3-0. That would be… as a great man once said… ‘yuge’.

Money:

I know we don’t like to talk about donors… but you can’t win without money. This round, there’s only one guy with money and it’s not Donald Trump.

Here’s what people don’t want to talk about with regard to Donald Trump and his campaign. He bleeds cash. The guy lives a bit of an expensive lifestyle. When Ron DeSantis goes somewhere these days, he rents a small jet and puts everyone who doesn’t fit on a bus. When Trump goes somewhere he takes Trump Force One, a fricken Boeing 757 with a full staff… and he owns that plane. Rain or shine, that thing is costing the Trump campaign money.

Beyond that, Trump rallies are ‘yuge’ expenses. Like stadium concert expensive… but the tickets are free.

It’s rumored that he’s already spent $15 million of donor cash just attacking Ron DeSantis and another $15 million on his lawyers defending him against his various lawsuits and pending criminal charges… and the game hasn’t even really gotten going yet.

He’s not raising money like he used to either. DeSantis has already poached his main donors. There aren’t many heavy hitters left that want to support him.

The Ron DeSantis Super PAC supposedly has over $200 million in committed cash waiting to deploy. He is going to put 2500 volunteers on the street in every competitive state.

This was always one of the DeSantis’ secret weapons… and pretty soon even the Trump supporting mainstream media will be forced to talk about it. Donald Trump has a money problem.

As for The Donald being a super rich billionaire… Believe me, he has investors and partners in his business and his wealth isn’t liquid. He can’t just pull a couple hundred million out of his organization to run for President again. The Trump brand isn’t what it used to be.

I do want to be clear, he’s not broke yet… but with his burn rate and no billionaire donors waiting in the wings to back him, this will be a problem sooner rather than later.

Messaging:

You will not find a campaign more disciplined on messaging than Ron DeSantis. He doesn’t get rattled. He doesn’t get dragged into petty fights. He just hammers his wins and talks about his platform. The only time he ever talks about the past is to point out that he did things differently than his opponents and it worked out. Nobody can beat him there.

Beyond that, he’s a good man. He has a great family. His wife is beautiful and is his biggest asset behind the scenes. His kids are adorable. He doesn’t cheat. He doesn’t treat women like crap. He seems like an American dad. Trump seems like the sketchy uncle nobody would talk to if it weren’t for his lake house and cool boat.

Women:

Finally, we get to talk about the elephant in the room. Women. They only make up 50% of the damn country… and while it may be news to Republicans in the last decade, but they’ve been allowed to come out of the kitchen and vote for a few years now.

I don’t know who needs to hear this… but Donald Trump makes women’s skin crawl. They viscerally hate him.

I don’t claim to understand women. I’m a gay guy in my 40’s and while some women really like me, it’s usually in spite of myself. But I do know this much, they hate Donald Trump. He reminds them of an ex-boyfriend, or a shitty boss that treated them badly, or a stepdad, or maybe just a villain in a movie. Either way, they are repelled by the man.

He doesn’t come off as “masculine” in the good sense. By “good sense” I mean like Humphrey Bogart or Gary Cooper. Trump doesn’t read like that at all to women. He reads like the villain Bogey or Coop would beat the hell out of before wining the beautiful lady in perfect celluloid fashion.

On the other hand, I think Ron DeSantis will do well with women. He doesn’t come off as threatening. He’s married to an incredible woman who is is his best friend and closest confidant. He’s a successful father and husband. He’s good looking enough. Women like Ron DeSantis… and they should, he’s a good man.

Compare him to that 300 pound orange bastard who paid off a hooker while his third wife was pregnant. Like I said, I’m no expert on women, but the ones I know seriously hate that kind of thing.

Conclusion

Well, welcome to the 2024 GOP primaries everyone. This is what we’ve got. Ron DeSantis isn’t the most magnetic individual to ever run, and Donald Trump and his minions still have the air in the room… but this is a long race and it’s only just started. Let’s see how it goes.

God bless all of you and God bless America. She is worth saving, if we can get out of our own way.

Non Sequitur

Another part of the soundtrack to my life is gone. I love Tina Turner. Prayers for her and her family and loved ones.

Damn.

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Happy Thursday everyone. Keep your heads up out there! Go touch some grass. Play some great music and let it take you back to a better time.

—Virgil