I like your enthusiasm. Don’t know much about DeSantis. The little I’ve heard and your portrayal make him a strong contender if reason and sanity count.
I have a feeling ‘reproductive rights’ will decide the 2024 election, in which case the Republican nomination might be irrelevant.
Abortion will certainly be on the ballot. Dobbs was an earthquake and despite insistence from the right that it wasn't going to be a major electoral issue, the midterms showed that it will be.
DeSantis hasn't made any indication that he is in favor of really any federal abortion legislation, although I do think he would get behind a late term ban if it came up... It's one of those issues that's just going to be tricky for the GOP.
If he gets the nomination, my guess is that you will see him explain that while he was in favor of a heartbeat bill in Florida he recognizes that different areas of the country feel differently on the subject and that the issue should remain with the states. That's the safe route...
One other point that should be noted though... Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are not electable against anyone but Trump. Abortion smamortion... nobody is going to vote for Biden if the opponent isn't Donald Trump.
I’m a woman and I love trump. Wouldn’t marry him but so what ? He is what he is and he doesn’t lie about it and all the right people hate him. I’m fine with DeSantis too
I certainly didn't mean to imply that I speak for all women... I think I mentioned that I am pretty unqualified to do so LOL! That said, both through both anecdotal evidence and polling, it's pretty obvious that Trump doesn't resonate with women at large. Obviously some women like him... That's the nice thing about America, we are all individuals and can support who we want.
If you were saying DeSantis is a secret lefty or something, I'd argue with ya... but your opinions on Trump are your opinions. I probably disagree at this point, but there ya go.
I get it. Just felt the need to pipe in. Some people think Trump is a bad candidate cuz he’s icky, but honestly the Dems will make everyone they can hate DeSantis even more than they hate Trump. It’s like no one remembers the crap they said about Bush
I was thinking this after having a look at what’s recently been said about DeSantis in the British liberal newspaper The Guardian. More or less interchangeable with Trump, ignorant mudslinging. In the paper’s world view there are two brands of American voter, (a) Hillary Clinton admirers (b) Nazis. If you subtracted Trump’s misdemeanours it wouldn’t make a difference, even if he stopped using tanning lotion.
I agree that mainstream media will lie about DeSantis the same way that they lied about Trump. The difference is that Trump, despite the lies told about him, is actually a pretty repugnant person. DeSantis isn't.
Trump voters love Trump in spite of his personal failures. It's just the opposite for Ron. At least that's been my experience.
As to Ron DeSantis having a "great ground game" there is a ton of data that says that is not only not true, but he is losing ground.
Donald J Trump won the 2016 POTUS Florida election with 4.6MM votes v Clinton w/ 4.5MM votes. Not a landslide. There were 4.5MM registered Republicans in 2017 and there were 4.8MM registered Dems.
Ron DeSantis won the 2018 Florida Gov race with 4.1MM votes beating his confused opponent by 33,000 votes.
DJT won the 2020 POTUS Florida election with 5.7MM votes v Biden at 5.3MM votes. Trump increased his winning margin and also got 1.1MM more votes than in 2016.
Ron DeSantis won the 2022 Florida Gov race with 4.6MM votes beating Charlie Crist by 1.5MM votes -- a huge improvement in the margin of victory, but not as substantial an increase in total votes as Trump in 2016 v 2022. In 4 years he picked up half of what Trump did.
In the background, Florida had a total of 14.6MM registered voters in 2020 and 14.5MM in 2022 -- registered voters in total went DOWN while Republicans surpassed Dems in 2021 -- right after the 2020 POTUS election. This is attributable to the State Republican Party's voter registration campaigns associated w/ POTUS races.
If Ron DeSantis had a great ground game, it would show up somewhere in the numbers -- votes or registrations.
Clearly the improvement in Florida for Republicans -- which is not nearly as large as they would have you believe -- is driven by the juice and money surrounding POTUS elections and not anything done by DeSantis.
I don't think it's fair to compare 2020 POTUS vote totals to anything. Nothing has ever happened like 2020 before. The Dems understood the game beautifully and Donald Trump was too caught up in his various scandals to pay any attention to what was happening. Not that Romney McDaniel did anything to help there...
The fact is that the electorate was expanded through mail in voting, early voting, and ballot harvesting in a way that has never been done before. Granted, Trump also got some higher vote totals because of that as well... but the Dems correctly calculated that it would be more weighted in their favor considering every black church in America just had people bring their ballots in for themselves, their neighbors, and several dead acquaintances. While Trump told his side he didn't trust the mail ins... (🙄 just shooting himself if the damn foot again. If you can't keep the game from being rigged, at least commit to play)
DeSantis is known for being a very organized guy. I was in Florida during the 2022 campaign and the energy was palpable. I couldn't find anyone who wasn't thrilled with his leadership though Covid, through hurricanes, through it all.
His family is great. He lives his values. And his apparatus in Florida wasn't just strong, it was incredible. He took a formerly purple swing state and turned it deep red though good governance... and yes, some of that was new voters moving in... but why the hell do you think they were coming?
DeSantis' ground game, well funded, will be INCREDIBLY strong. If I'm wrong, he'll lose... but I'm not wrong about that.
You indict your own answer. What happened went more for Trump than it did for Biden which sets the high limit as to what was possible.
In 2022, comparing DeSantis 2018 v DeSantis 2022, it is clear that DeSantis did not have the same results, the same wave of increase.
The 2020 POTUS election results were flushed out by 2022.
This is also further validated by the number of Republican registrants -- climbing nicely, but DeSantis was unable to reap that harvest.
There can be no doubt that Florida was happy w/ DeSantis as he beat Crist by 1.5MM votes -- mostly Dems staying home rather than Republicans pouring out. That's what the numbers tell us. Substantially lower Dem voter turnout.
None of what you say translates or is traceable to a great ground game which is measured by new registrations, votes, and voter turnout. I believe the entire key to DeSantis 2022 victory was the Trump endorsement (which spoke for 5.7MM votes in 2020) and the weakness of Crist as a candidate.
DeSantis beat Crist by 1.5MM votes, but he didn't come close to Trump's numbers. So, one has to ask -- WTF exactly did the vaunted DeSantis ground game do and how can that be measured?
This is just data science and has nearly nothing to do with politics.
With respect, comparing midterm turnout numbers to an outlier POTUS year is not honest analysis. Frankly it's parroting a Trump truth social meme...
DeSantis won by almost 20 points in 2022. At the same time Trump's candidates got SLAUGHTERED and I have no patience for the idea that he "endorsed" a bunch of other people who were going to win anyway. Trump lost us the Senate... AGAIN. But I'm not saying anything you don't know or don't probably agree with...
As for DeSantis, his victory in Florida by 20 points in a purple state is direct evidence of an excellent campaign. AZ's gov race is another purple state... with another weak ass Democrat, but that weak ass Democrat actually WON because Kari Lake (who I call hot Stacey Abrams) followed the Trump model of all viral BS and no ground game.
You data science is flawed. Winning by 1.5MM votes and 20% in a year when the GOP was 'bigly' underperforming because of several reasons, NOT THE LEAST OF WHICH WAS TRUMP HIMSELF... if that isn't evidence of a talented politician with a hell of a campaign, I just don't know what is.
If it wasn't DeSantis in Florida that caused such and huge win, what the hell was it? Considering the GOP underperformed everywhere else?? Shit man, three days before the election, Trump directly ATTACKED DeSantis to try to tamp down his lead.
But you have failed to answer my question... after my angry tirade (sorry, I'm dealing with other frustrations at the moment. I hope you know I look to you for analysis and feedback).
Why did Crist move backward when no other Democrat in a major race did? Why did Hot Stacey Abrams lose when DeSantis won? They were facing virtually identical candidates in purple states?
I don't think you are giving DeSantis and his apparatus it's due. While I agree there is always some myth in a political victory (look no further than Trump 2016 as an example), the fact is that a 20 point victory in a formerly swing state in a bad gear for the victor's party is evidence of something, isn't it?
I mean did he get lucky? Was Crist that much worse than Katie Hobbs? After all, Crist is a former Governor of Florida and wasn't unpopular. Something had to cause the landslide he lost in...
Beyond that, the Dems lost the entire state. They won zero statewide offices in 2022. They lost Miami Dade. They lost several counties they won handily in 2020.... The leader of the GOP in Florida doesn't get credit for that? His campaign can't be called super effective with those results?
Your facts do not disagree; only your conclusion does.
Crist was a truly lousy candidate. He was a Republican when he was elected Governor. Then, he became an Independent and then in 2012 became a Dem.
He is a notorious loser having lost in 1998 to Bob Graham by 26 points for US Senate. Graham was a Dem and Crist was the Rep challenger.
Hot Stacy Abrams -- haha -- was not facing a candidate as hopelessly inept as Crust. Just not true.
Crist was and is a perennial loser who has lost as Rep/Dem in multiple statewide races.
There is no doubt the top of the ticket had a beneficial impact on the down ballot races. DeSantis was, of course, an incumbent.
What does DeSantis get credit for? For the fact that Crist only got 3.1MM votes? There is nothing in the ground game that sends an opponents vote total backwards.
Ron DeSantis is missing the one big ingredient necessary to unseat DJ Trump, charisma. He is currently the negative charisma. If someone with charisma shakes Ron DeS's hand, they lose charisma. He is a charisma sink (thermodynamics reference).
DeSantis has a Florida country club kind of Ivy League competitive zeal and he is running into a malicious, toxic kind of New York bare knuckles malignant churlishness that you only have one chance to overcome. Trump put a knock out blow on Jeb Bush and Jeb never recovered.
As to his campaign prowess, the launch says all that needs to be said. It was a stone cold, flop sweat disaster. You do not get a Mulligan on the launch. [Tim Scott did a fabulous job on launching.]
From a policy perspective, DeSantis doesn't have any real convictions, witness his huge swing and miss on the whole Ukraine situation. I cannot support him for his Ukraine stance alone. Amateur hour.
What policies he does have are just Trump policies with a new box and ribbon -- which is fine with me. I like Trump's policies. I even like them if they are DeSantis policies.
You give DeSantis credit for a lot of things with no evidence to back them up. There is no evidence Ron DeSantis is anything other than a Bush Yale Harvard conventional Republican who has hijacked a ton of Trump policies -- which is fine. He is, however, no visionary leader or inspirational orator -- Reagan being my exemplar. He is no seasoned brawler. He will get better, but right now, he is Jeb Bush.
You misunderstand the entire primary voting process. Fewer than 10% of Republican voters participate in the primaries. Here is Trump's killer edge -- his folks are angry zealots and they will show up to vote in the primaries. He has an established national organization and DeSantis can't launch without spilling the ketchup on his shirt.
This is just mechanical. It has nothing to do with the fundamental merits of his candidacy.
The biggest positives for DeSantis are Trump's negatives.
1. Trump is Trump and DeSantis is not.
In fairness to DeSantis, he is a well-educated jock with a great career arc including Navy JagOff, Congress X 3, and a two term Governor of an important and successful state.
He is exactly the kind of guy who should be President.
2. The Dark Forces are going to indict and convict Trump. We haven't seen anything yet. The Dems will pull out all the stops. They have the complete support of the DOJ and the FBI. It is a tribal war and they intend to do whatever it takes to get Trump. They will get him.
3. Trump is old at 76 and DeSantis is still a kid at 44, maybe even too young. He has to play like he's the energetic one. Right now, Trump looks fleeter of foot.
DeSantis cannot win, but Trump can lose. I think he will.
I appreciate the engagement and while I disagree on some points made here, I agree with you on some too. Regarding the "charisma sink", this is apt when he's in a formal interview. That said, I've seen him spar with the press and glad hand in person and while you are correct, the man is no Bill Clinton, I think he comes across rather well in those less formal surroundings. He also gives a perfectly fine speech.
His biggest issue, personality and style wise, are formal interviews. His answers come out canned, which necessarily makes them seem inauthentic. You might say that's because he is inauthentic... I disagree.
It didn't take Donald Trump saying that critical race theory is bad for Ron DeSantis to say it. Frankly I don't even know if I've heard The Donald say anything about it at all considering for the last couple of years all he's talked about has been January 6th and the 2020 election... well, that's not quite fair... he talks about his many lawsuits and pending criminal charges as also.
Ron DeSantis' ability to win the culture war is one of the things that brought him to national prominence. It's a strong asset and there is no evidence to show that he doesn't mean what he says or will not follow through with a similar domestic agenda when POTUS.
Regarding Ukraine... Yep, he messed that up. He just did. It was a softball too... All he had to say was that US policy should always be toward world peace and that peace through strength is a central pillar holding world peace together. That the war in Ukraine is terrible and he prays for it to end and end soon, but that it cannot end with the destruction of Ukraine. Regarding how much or how long we should fund Ukraine, there must be limits and those limits should be used to negotiate, from a position of strength, for a cessation of hostilities. There... that's it. Not inspiring, but gets the issue off the table for him for a little while.
That said, God only knows what Trump would do about Ukraine. I don't agree that "never would have happened" under Trump. I think Trump would have threatened Putin, then the question would be whether or not Putin called his bluff... because "bombing Moscow" as Trump said would be a bluff.
Regarding the primary process, I am very well aware of Trump's hoard. But this isn't 2016 and DeSantis has every ability to get his voters out too. What will be critical is getting the race down to a head to head match up (with DeSantis v. Trump or someone else v. Trump) before Super Tuesday.
Trump won the nomination with like 35% of GOP vote in 2016. I don't believe he will do better than that come primary time next year. Screw his hoard. Most of them aren't even registered as Republicans anyway. The vast majority will get in line come November and those who don't will be replaced by neighborhoods filled with women who would prefer the government not cut their sons' dicks off.
In the end, Ron DeSantis is not Donald Trump (I think that's his best quality, but you might disagree). He's not going to beat Donald Trump at Trump's own game. He has to change the rules and shift the field. He attempted to do that last night with his Twitter shit show. It was a disaster. He will have to keep trying to find a lane.
Ron DeSantis isn't perfect. I'd prefer someone with his resume and his positions but with Ronald Reagans smile and Bill Clinton's ability to play the saxophone. That's not what we've got. We've got Ron DeSantis. He's the only guy with a chance at the moment.
Trump abandoned conservatives with Covid and then with his insanity since 2020. He is only out for himself and if he's elected, he will not survive the onslaught that will come his way. They'll put him in prison or just assassinate his ass (or both). We need to move on... as a party and as a country.
Ron will find his groove... He has a very full calendar and Trump hasn't left Mar-a-Lago since he cancelled his Iowa event because he didn't want to be up there with DeSantis. DeSantis scares Trump... that's something.
And lastly, Ron DeSantis is no Jeb Bush and this is not 2016. Ron is going to have unlimited money and a very strong ground game. Underestimate him at your peril...
This is like differential equations -- there are singularly correct answers and they have to be based on truth.
I am surprised you think DeSantis is good on the stump and when dealing with voters/donors and supporters as my criticism comes from his recent big meeting w/ big donors in which they said he was stiff as a 2 x 12.
Of course, he will get better.
He's a jock and he has the easy banter with jock peers, but he doesn't have the common touch. He's an Ivy Leaguer and lawyer -- nothing in his background suggests he has the common touch or understands the working stiff. Would it be unfair to say that Trump tapped into this? Jeb Bush didn't have it. Ted Cruz doesn't have it.
The Ron guy has ZERO ground game outside of Florida. He couldn't by law build a ground game until he formally announced for President, so he can't have a ground game in the early primary states.
[Interesting inside baseball factoid: Under Florida law, a sitting Florida Governor has to resign his position to run for POTUS. What did Gov DeSantis do? Last week, he had the Republican majority legislature quietly change the law so he doesn't have to resign as Florida Gov to run for POTUS. Not exactly a "burn the boats" statement of intent. Unfair to suggest this is a guy who if not a winner in the primaries, wants to keep his day job?]
The issue w/ Trump's horde is not just that they are loyal; it is they actually vote in primaries. The turnout for all primaries in the last 20 years is right at 27% which grossly overstates the actual turnout.
If Trump has support from -- pick your number -- of 35% of Registered Republicans and they all show up to vote, he has more than the average entire turnout over the last 23 years. It is a formidable bit of arithmetic.
In 2020, to put that into perspective, the turnout was only 60.5% of registered voters.
From this total, DeSantis has to carve out more than half of that number in order to even be competitive. Right now he has zero supporters or organization in any of the primary states.
One other problem DeSantis has is he has zero support from youth. No real surprise as much of his anti-woke sentiment is disproportionately embraced by youth. This is important as there are 4 years of new voters who came of age since the last primary.
Trump is positioned as an incumbent. Just stepping back and embracing that analogy suggests the magnitude of the hill DeSantis has to climb.
Given the sheer magnitude of what he has survived, it is difficult to imagine what other travail the left will throw at the Trump that would best him.
Now with the Mueller and Durham investigations behind us, it is clear the entire Russian hoax was fabricated in its entirety. Every day of every week, both Trump and Putin knew that to be true.
As to what Trump would have done vis a vis Putin, I think it is clear -- based on Trump's own utterances -- he would have engaged w/ Putin when it was clear Putin put a massive force on the Ukraine border.
Trump has said he would have stationed NATO units opposite the troop buildup. He would have engaged directly w/ Putin. Since 1950, nobody has ever engaged with or spoken to North Korea in a manner that modified their belligerent behavior except for Trump who bullshitted Kim in off the ledge.
There were 4 years of peace whilst Trump was in the WH and he was supposedly the guy who would lead us into WWIII.
Having said long ago that Trump's shelf life has expired, I would love to see a DeSantis in the WH w/ Trump's policies.
As usual the big red car's boss makes good points. Again I don't agree with all of them.
First, where we agree:
DeSantis has an image and optics problem. Part of it is him, part of it is that he OBVIOUSLY doesn't have a team that understands making a splash. A prime example being that teaser video with the unnamed narrator. When I first saw it, I figured it must have been an old Goldwater speech that I hadn't heard before... but it wasn't. Just some random narrator saying some patriotic stuff. It was good stuff, but why did they make it sound like that? (Missed opportunity to use Reagan or even himself).
Then he walks through the curtain to a cliff hanger. I loved that. I thought it was powerful. More was to come!!!
Then the damn real add dropped. And he apparently walked into an empty airplane hanger. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, MAN? Where are the crowds of cheering DeSantis supporters? Where is the music? Where is... anything? Bad bad bad.
If that wasn't a famous speech in the teaser ad, why the hell didn't DeSantis just say that shit to about 10,000 cheering supporters???
So yes, first on the man's list needs to be to hire someone to work on that stuff. Maybe someone Trump fired. There are bound to be plenty of those around. Very frustrating and a big miss.
----
You have a fine point about Putin, although I don't think DeSantis would have screwed that up were he in office. Like any Governor who runs for Federal office, foreign policy is not something they are going to have experience with... save for Sarah Palin who could see Russia from her house (I know that's not a real quote, but it's still funny).
The fact is that Obama and Biden are awful at foreign policy. They make literally the exactly wrong decision on everything. Climate hysteria, trade, energy, military, and alliances... they are on the wrong side of all of them. If Trump got HALF the stuff he did correct, he easily blows those morons out of the water. I don't see a huge amount of daylight between Trump and DeSantis on foreign policy and frankly, some of Trump's blustering could have been a little counterproductive at times. Feel free to disagree.
I know DeSantis is at a disadvantage there, but Bush overcame that against Gore in 2000 (barely). A Governor can win.
---
Now for the big bugaboo... Can DeSantis win? Can he get some young Trump votes to defect? Can he bring enough women and indys on board to offset the people who will never leave Trump no matter what?
My answer is that I don't know... and neither does anyone else. DeSantis needs to get a foothold and start making progress. Only then will we know if he truly has the stones to do this. It is admittedly a herculean task.
Regarding his ground game... He is a pro. He did it in Florida. He knows how to run a grass roots campaign. He is super well funded... despite Trumps propaganda about him not being good in the room with donors... the fact is that people are shoveling money at him and not Trump. Trump will get money if he can knock off DeSantis... not before.
DeSantis is an extremely formidable traditional politician. Trump is a wild card crazy man with a hoard of single digit IQ meth heads and assholes trolling for him. I don't know much about this polling and I don't know what is going to happen... but I do know this, there are more Republicans out there that would like to see a new nominee than there are who MUST have Donald Trump. That means there is a chance to win.
The media is against DeSantis because they are married to Trump for money and believe that Biden could beat him. The Trump base thinks he's a traitor. Back to my original point... if he can find someone to help him control his OWN narrative and not let Trump or the press or anyone else control it, he has a shot. If he doesn't do that, he will lose.
No nasally autistic policy discussion is going to beat the Trump show. He's going to have to show himself to be the biggest, smartest, most well organized and well funded bastard in the race. He needs to make people believe that he can do what Trump only said he would do.
But we will see...
As for Pompeo , I don't have any issues with the guy. I've never really thought of him as a POTUS option... but at least he understand the IC and won't spend all term fighting with them over shit nobody cares about. 🤷♂️
I like your enthusiasm. Don’t know much about DeSantis. The little I’ve heard and your portrayal make him a strong contender if reason and sanity count.
I have a feeling ‘reproductive rights’ will decide the 2024 election, in which case the Republican nomination might be irrelevant.
Abortion will certainly be on the ballot. Dobbs was an earthquake and despite insistence from the right that it wasn't going to be a major electoral issue, the midterms showed that it will be.
DeSantis hasn't made any indication that he is in favor of really any federal abortion legislation, although I do think he would get behind a late term ban if it came up... It's one of those issues that's just going to be tricky for the GOP.
If he gets the nomination, my guess is that you will see him explain that while he was in favor of a heartbeat bill in Florida he recognizes that different areas of the country feel differently on the subject and that the issue should remain with the states. That's the safe route...
One other point that should be noted though... Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are not electable against anyone but Trump. Abortion smamortion... nobody is going to vote for Biden if the opponent isn't Donald Trump.
I’m a woman and I love trump. Wouldn’t marry him but so what ? He is what he is and he doesn’t lie about it and all the right people hate him. I’m fine with DeSantis too
I certainly didn't mean to imply that I speak for all women... I think I mentioned that I am pretty unqualified to do so LOL! That said, both through both anecdotal evidence and polling, it's pretty obvious that Trump doesn't resonate with women at large. Obviously some women like him... That's the nice thing about America, we are all individuals and can support who we want.
If you were saying DeSantis is a secret lefty or something, I'd argue with ya... but your opinions on Trump are your opinions. I probably disagree at this point, but there ya go.
I get it. Just felt the need to pipe in. Some people think Trump is a bad candidate cuz he’s icky, but honestly the Dems will make everyone they can hate DeSantis even more than they hate Trump. It’s like no one remembers the crap they said about Bush
They are definitely going to come for DeSantis. They already are. He can handle it though. It just helps him with the base.
I was thinking this after having a look at what’s recently been said about DeSantis in the British liberal newspaper The Guardian. More or less interchangeable with Trump, ignorant mudslinging. In the paper’s world view there are two brands of American voter, (a) Hillary Clinton admirers (b) Nazis. If you subtracted Trump’s misdemeanours it wouldn’t make a difference, even if he stopped using tanning lotion.
I agree that mainstream media will lie about DeSantis the same way that they lied about Trump. The difference is that Trump, despite the lies told about him, is actually a pretty repugnant person. DeSantis isn't.
Trump voters love Trump in spite of his personal failures. It's just the opposite for Ron. At least that's been my experience.
As to Ron DeSantis having a "great ground game" there is a ton of data that says that is not only not true, but he is losing ground.
Donald J Trump won the 2016 POTUS Florida election with 4.6MM votes v Clinton w/ 4.5MM votes. Not a landslide. There were 4.5MM registered Republicans in 2017 and there were 4.8MM registered Dems.
Ron DeSantis won the 2018 Florida Gov race with 4.1MM votes beating his confused opponent by 33,000 votes.
DJT won the 2020 POTUS Florida election with 5.7MM votes v Biden at 5.3MM votes. Trump increased his winning margin and also got 1.1MM more votes than in 2016.
Ron DeSantis won the 2022 Florida Gov race with 4.6MM votes beating Charlie Crist by 1.5MM votes -- a huge improvement in the margin of victory, but not as substantial an increase in total votes as Trump in 2016 v 2022. In 4 years he picked up half of what Trump did.
In the background, Florida had a total of 14.6MM registered voters in 2020 and 14.5MM in 2022 -- registered voters in total went DOWN while Republicans surpassed Dems in 2021 -- right after the 2020 POTUS election. This is attributable to the State Republican Party's voter registration campaigns associated w/ POTUS races.
If Ron DeSantis had a great ground game, it would show up somewhere in the numbers -- votes or registrations.
Clearly the improvement in Florida for Republicans -- which is not nearly as large as they would have you believe -- is driven by the juice and money surrounding POTUS elections and not anything done by DeSantis.
These are just numbers, but they are convincing.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
I don't think it's fair to compare 2020 POTUS vote totals to anything. Nothing has ever happened like 2020 before. The Dems understood the game beautifully and Donald Trump was too caught up in his various scandals to pay any attention to what was happening. Not that Romney McDaniel did anything to help there...
The fact is that the electorate was expanded through mail in voting, early voting, and ballot harvesting in a way that has never been done before. Granted, Trump also got some higher vote totals because of that as well... but the Dems correctly calculated that it would be more weighted in their favor considering every black church in America just had people bring their ballots in for themselves, their neighbors, and several dead acquaintances. While Trump told his side he didn't trust the mail ins... (🙄 just shooting himself if the damn foot again. If you can't keep the game from being rigged, at least commit to play)
DeSantis is known for being a very organized guy. I was in Florida during the 2022 campaign and the energy was palpable. I couldn't find anyone who wasn't thrilled with his leadership though Covid, through hurricanes, through it all.
His family is great. He lives his values. And his apparatus in Florida wasn't just strong, it was incredible. He took a formerly purple swing state and turned it deep red though good governance... and yes, some of that was new voters moving in... but why the hell do you think they were coming?
DeSantis' ground game, well funded, will be INCREDIBLY strong. If I'm wrong, he'll lose... but I'm not wrong about that.
You indict your own answer. What happened went more for Trump than it did for Biden which sets the high limit as to what was possible.
In 2022, comparing DeSantis 2018 v DeSantis 2022, it is clear that DeSantis did not have the same results, the same wave of increase.
The 2020 POTUS election results were flushed out by 2022.
This is also further validated by the number of Republican registrants -- climbing nicely, but DeSantis was unable to reap that harvest.
There can be no doubt that Florida was happy w/ DeSantis as he beat Crist by 1.5MM votes -- mostly Dems staying home rather than Republicans pouring out. That's what the numbers tell us. Substantially lower Dem voter turnout.
None of what you say translates or is traceable to a great ground game which is measured by new registrations, votes, and voter turnout. I believe the entire key to DeSantis 2022 victory was the Trump endorsement (which spoke for 5.7MM votes in 2020) and the weakness of Crist as a candidate.
DeSantis beat Crist by 1.5MM votes, but he didn't come close to Trump's numbers. So, one has to ask -- WTF exactly did the vaunted DeSantis ground game do and how can that be measured?
This is just data science and has nearly nothing to do with politics.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
With respect, comparing midterm turnout numbers to an outlier POTUS year is not honest analysis. Frankly it's parroting a Trump truth social meme...
DeSantis won by almost 20 points in 2022. At the same time Trump's candidates got SLAUGHTERED and I have no patience for the idea that he "endorsed" a bunch of other people who were going to win anyway. Trump lost us the Senate... AGAIN. But I'm not saying anything you don't know or don't probably agree with...
As for DeSantis, his victory in Florida by 20 points in a purple state is direct evidence of an excellent campaign. AZ's gov race is another purple state... with another weak ass Democrat, but that weak ass Democrat actually WON because Kari Lake (who I call hot Stacey Abrams) followed the Trump model of all viral BS and no ground game.
You data science is flawed. Winning by 1.5MM votes and 20% in a year when the GOP was 'bigly' underperforming because of several reasons, NOT THE LEAST OF WHICH WAS TRUMP HIMSELF... if that isn't evidence of a talented politician with a hell of a campaign, I just don't know what is.
If it wasn't DeSantis in Florida that caused such and huge win, what the hell was it? Considering the GOP underperformed everywhere else?? Shit man, three days before the election, Trump directly ATTACKED DeSantis to try to tamp down his lead.
My comment has nothing to do with Trump and his name is only mentioned as his numbers are relevant.
Trump's endorsements were extraordinarily effective at the primary level, but the Republicans -- en masse -- failed to perform on Election Day.
It is abundantly clear that Crist LOST by a huge margin, but it is not attributable to DeSantis crushing him with some mythical ground game.
Crist garnered a total of 3,106,313 votes to DeSantis' 4.6MM. To put that into perspective, Gillum in 2018 captured 4MM votes.
Crist went backwards. That explains the margin of victory.
The DeSantis ground game did not subtract votes from Crist. Crust was a lousy candidate.
I have no brief against DeSantis, but I also don't intend to swallow anybody's propaganda. There is zero evidence DeSantis has a great ground game.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
But you have failed to answer my question... after my angry tirade (sorry, I'm dealing with other frustrations at the moment. I hope you know I look to you for analysis and feedback).
Why did Crist move backward when no other Democrat in a major race did? Why did Hot Stacey Abrams lose when DeSantis won? They were facing virtually identical candidates in purple states?
I don't think you are giving DeSantis and his apparatus it's due. While I agree there is always some myth in a political victory (look no further than Trump 2016 as an example), the fact is that a 20 point victory in a formerly swing state in a bad gear for the victor's party is evidence of something, isn't it?
I mean did he get lucky? Was Crist that much worse than Katie Hobbs? After all, Crist is a former Governor of Florida and wasn't unpopular. Something had to cause the landslide he lost in...
Beyond that, the Dems lost the entire state. They won zero statewide offices in 2022. They lost Miami Dade. They lost several counties they won handily in 2020.... The leader of the GOP in Florida doesn't get credit for that? His campaign can't be called super effective with those results?
I'm sorry... I disagree.
Your facts do not disagree; only your conclusion does.
Crist was a truly lousy candidate. He was a Republican when he was elected Governor. Then, he became an Independent and then in 2012 became a Dem.
He is a notorious loser having lost in 1998 to Bob Graham by 26 points for US Senate. Graham was a Dem and Crist was the Rep challenger.
Hot Stacy Abrams -- haha -- was not facing a candidate as hopelessly inept as Crust. Just not true.
Crist was and is a perennial loser who has lost as Rep/Dem in multiple statewide races.
There is no doubt the top of the ticket had a beneficial impact on the down ballot races. DeSantis was, of course, an incumbent.
What does DeSantis get credit for? For the fact that Crist only got 3.1MM votes? There is nothing in the ground game that sends an opponents vote total backwards.
JLM
www.themusingofthebigredcar.com
Ron DeSantis is missing the one big ingredient necessary to unseat DJ Trump, charisma. He is currently the negative charisma. If someone with charisma shakes Ron DeS's hand, they lose charisma. He is a charisma sink (thermodynamics reference).
DeSantis has a Florida country club kind of Ivy League competitive zeal and he is running into a malicious, toxic kind of New York bare knuckles malignant churlishness that you only have one chance to overcome. Trump put a knock out blow on Jeb Bush and Jeb never recovered.
As to his campaign prowess, the launch says all that needs to be said. It was a stone cold, flop sweat disaster. You do not get a Mulligan on the launch. [Tim Scott did a fabulous job on launching.]
From a policy perspective, DeSantis doesn't have any real convictions, witness his huge swing and miss on the whole Ukraine situation. I cannot support him for his Ukraine stance alone. Amateur hour.
What policies he does have are just Trump policies with a new box and ribbon -- which is fine with me. I like Trump's policies. I even like them if they are DeSantis policies.
You give DeSantis credit for a lot of things with no evidence to back them up. There is no evidence Ron DeSantis is anything other than a Bush Yale Harvard conventional Republican who has hijacked a ton of Trump policies -- which is fine. He is, however, no visionary leader or inspirational orator -- Reagan being my exemplar. He is no seasoned brawler. He will get better, but right now, he is Jeb Bush.
You misunderstand the entire primary voting process. Fewer than 10% of Republican voters participate in the primaries. Here is Trump's killer edge -- his folks are angry zealots and they will show up to vote in the primaries. He has an established national organization and DeSantis can't launch without spilling the ketchup on his shirt.
This is just mechanical. It has nothing to do with the fundamental merits of his candidacy.
The biggest positives for DeSantis are Trump's negatives.
1. Trump is Trump and DeSantis is not.
In fairness to DeSantis, he is a well-educated jock with a great career arc including Navy JagOff, Congress X 3, and a two term Governor of an important and successful state.
He is exactly the kind of guy who should be President.
2. The Dark Forces are going to indict and convict Trump. We haven't seen anything yet. The Dems will pull out all the stops. They have the complete support of the DOJ and the FBI. It is a tribal war and they intend to do whatever it takes to get Trump. They will get him.
3. Trump is old at 76 and DeSantis is still a kid at 44, maybe even too young. He has to play like he's the energetic one. Right now, Trump looks fleeter of foot.
DeSantis cannot win, but Trump can lose. I think he will.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
I appreciate the engagement and while I disagree on some points made here, I agree with you on some too. Regarding the "charisma sink", this is apt when he's in a formal interview. That said, I've seen him spar with the press and glad hand in person and while you are correct, the man is no Bill Clinton, I think he comes across rather well in those less formal surroundings. He also gives a perfectly fine speech.
His biggest issue, personality and style wise, are formal interviews. His answers come out canned, which necessarily makes them seem inauthentic. You might say that's because he is inauthentic... I disagree.
It didn't take Donald Trump saying that critical race theory is bad for Ron DeSantis to say it. Frankly I don't even know if I've heard The Donald say anything about it at all considering for the last couple of years all he's talked about has been January 6th and the 2020 election... well, that's not quite fair... he talks about his many lawsuits and pending criminal charges as also.
Ron DeSantis' ability to win the culture war is one of the things that brought him to national prominence. It's a strong asset and there is no evidence to show that he doesn't mean what he says or will not follow through with a similar domestic agenda when POTUS.
Regarding Ukraine... Yep, he messed that up. He just did. It was a softball too... All he had to say was that US policy should always be toward world peace and that peace through strength is a central pillar holding world peace together. That the war in Ukraine is terrible and he prays for it to end and end soon, but that it cannot end with the destruction of Ukraine. Regarding how much or how long we should fund Ukraine, there must be limits and those limits should be used to negotiate, from a position of strength, for a cessation of hostilities. There... that's it. Not inspiring, but gets the issue off the table for him for a little while.
That said, God only knows what Trump would do about Ukraine. I don't agree that "never would have happened" under Trump. I think Trump would have threatened Putin, then the question would be whether or not Putin called his bluff... because "bombing Moscow" as Trump said would be a bluff.
Regarding the primary process, I am very well aware of Trump's hoard. But this isn't 2016 and DeSantis has every ability to get his voters out too. What will be critical is getting the race down to a head to head match up (with DeSantis v. Trump or someone else v. Trump) before Super Tuesday.
Trump won the nomination with like 35% of GOP vote in 2016. I don't believe he will do better than that come primary time next year. Screw his hoard. Most of them aren't even registered as Republicans anyway. The vast majority will get in line come November and those who don't will be replaced by neighborhoods filled with women who would prefer the government not cut their sons' dicks off.
In the end, Ron DeSantis is not Donald Trump (I think that's his best quality, but you might disagree). He's not going to beat Donald Trump at Trump's own game. He has to change the rules and shift the field. He attempted to do that last night with his Twitter shit show. It was a disaster. He will have to keep trying to find a lane.
Ron DeSantis isn't perfect. I'd prefer someone with his resume and his positions but with Ronald Reagans smile and Bill Clinton's ability to play the saxophone. That's not what we've got. We've got Ron DeSantis. He's the only guy with a chance at the moment.
Trump abandoned conservatives with Covid and then with his insanity since 2020. He is only out for himself and if he's elected, he will not survive the onslaught that will come his way. They'll put him in prison or just assassinate his ass (or both). We need to move on... as a party and as a country.
Ron will find his groove... He has a very full calendar and Trump hasn't left Mar-a-Lago since he cancelled his Iowa event because he didn't want to be up there with DeSantis. DeSantis scares Trump... that's something.
And lastly, Ron DeSantis is no Jeb Bush and this is not 2016. Ron is going to have unlimited money and a very strong ground game. Underestimate him at your peril...
IMHO and with respect!
This is like differential equations -- there are singularly correct answers and they have to be based on truth.
I am surprised you think DeSantis is good on the stump and when dealing with voters/donors and supporters as my criticism comes from his recent big meeting w/ big donors in which they said he was stiff as a 2 x 12.
Of course, he will get better.
He's a jock and he has the easy banter with jock peers, but he doesn't have the common touch. He's an Ivy Leaguer and lawyer -- nothing in his background suggests he has the common touch or understands the working stiff. Would it be unfair to say that Trump tapped into this? Jeb Bush didn't have it. Ted Cruz doesn't have it.
The Ron guy has ZERO ground game outside of Florida. He couldn't by law build a ground game until he formally announced for President, so he can't have a ground game in the early primary states.
[Interesting inside baseball factoid: Under Florida law, a sitting Florida Governor has to resign his position to run for POTUS. What did Gov DeSantis do? Last week, he had the Republican majority legislature quietly change the law so he doesn't have to resign as Florida Gov to run for POTUS. Not exactly a "burn the boats" statement of intent. Unfair to suggest this is a guy who if not a winner in the primaries, wants to keep his day job?]
The issue w/ Trump's horde is not just that they are loyal; it is they actually vote in primaries. The turnout for all primaries in the last 20 years is right at 27% which grossly overstates the actual turnout.
If Trump has support from -- pick your number -- of 35% of Registered Republicans and they all show up to vote, he has more than the average entire turnout over the last 23 years. It is a formidable bit of arithmetic.
In 2020, to put that into perspective, the turnout was only 60.5% of registered voters.
From this total, DeSantis has to carve out more than half of that number in order to even be competitive. Right now he has zero supporters or organization in any of the primary states.
One other problem DeSantis has is he has zero support from youth. No real surprise as much of his anti-woke sentiment is disproportionately embraced by youth. This is important as there are 4 years of new voters who came of age since the last primary.
Trump is positioned as an incumbent. Just stepping back and embracing that analogy suggests the magnitude of the hill DeSantis has to climb.
Given the sheer magnitude of what he has survived, it is difficult to imagine what other travail the left will throw at the Trump that would best him.
Now with the Mueller and Durham investigations behind us, it is clear the entire Russian hoax was fabricated in its entirety. Every day of every week, both Trump and Putin knew that to be true.
As to what Trump would have done vis a vis Putin, I think it is clear -- based on Trump's own utterances -- he would have engaged w/ Putin when it was clear Putin put a massive force on the Ukraine border.
Trump has said he would have stationed NATO units opposite the troop buildup. He would have engaged directly w/ Putin. Since 1950, nobody has ever engaged with or spoken to North Korea in a manner that modified their belligerent behavior except for Trump who bullshitted Kim in off the ledge.
There were 4 years of peace whilst Trump was in the WH and he was supposedly the guy who would lead us into WWIII.
Having said long ago that Trump's shelf life has expired, I would love to see a DeSantis in the WH w/ Trump's policies.
https://themusingsofthebigredcar.com/trump-sell-by-date-arrives/
The guy I like is Pompeo.
A DeSantis - Pompeo ticket would be a winner.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
As usual the big red car's boss makes good points. Again I don't agree with all of them.
First, where we agree:
DeSantis has an image and optics problem. Part of it is him, part of it is that he OBVIOUSLY doesn't have a team that understands making a splash. A prime example being that teaser video with the unnamed narrator. When I first saw it, I figured it must have been an old Goldwater speech that I hadn't heard before... but it wasn't. Just some random narrator saying some patriotic stuff. It was good stuff, but why did they make it sound like that? (Missed opportunity to use Reagan or even himself).
Then he walks through the curtain to a cliff hanger. I loved that. I thought it was powerful. More was to come!!!
Then the damn real add dropped. And he apparently walked into an empty airplane hanger. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, MAN? Where are the crowds of cheering DeSantis supporters? Where is the music? Where is... anything? Bad bad bad.
If that wasn't a famous speech in the teaser ad, why the hell didn't DeSantis just say that shit to about 10,000 cheering supporters???
So yes, first on the man's list needs to be to hire someone to work on that stuff. Maybe someone Trump fired. There are bound to be plenty of those around. Very frustrating and a big miss.
----
You have a fine point about Putin, although I don't think DeSantis would have screwed that up were he in office. Like any Governor who runs for Federal office, foreign policy is not something they are going to have experience with... save for Sarah Palin who could see Russia from her house (I know that's not a real quote, but it's still funny).
The fact is that Obama and Biden are awful at foreign policy. They make literally the exactly wrong decision on everything. Climate hysteria, trade, energy, military, and alliances... they are on the wrong side of all of them. If Trump got HALF the stuff he did correct, he easily blows those morons out of the water. I don't see a huge amount of daylight between Trump and DeSantis on foreign policy and frankly, some of Trump's blustering could have been a little counterproductive at times. Feel free to disagree.
I know DeSantis is at a disadvantage there, but Bush overcame that against Gore in 2000 (barely). A Governor can win.
---
Now for the big bugaboo... Can DeSantis win? Can he get some young Trump votes to defect? Can he bring enough women and indys on board to offset the people who will never leave Trump no matter what?
My answer is that I don't know... and neither does anyone else. DeSantis needs to get a foothold and start making progress. Only then will we know if he truly has the stones to do this. It is admittedly a herculean task.
Regarding his ground game... He is a pro. He did it in Florida. He knows how to run a grass roots campaign. He is super well funded... despite Trumps propaganda about him not being good in the room with donors... the fact is that people are shoveling money at him and not Trump. Trump will get money if he can knock off DeSantis... not before.
DeSantis is an extremely formidable traditional politician. Trump is a wild card crazy man with a hoard of single digit IQ meth heads and assholes trolling for him. I don't know much about this polling and I don't know what is going to happen... but I do know this, there are more Republicans out there that would like to see a new nominee than there are who MUST have Donald Trump. That means there is a chance to win.
The media is against DeSantis because they are married to Trump for money and believe that Biden could beat him. The Trump base thinks he's a traitor. Back to my original point... if he can find someone to help him control his OWN narrative and not let Trump or the press or anyone else control it, he has a shot. If he doesn't do that, he will lose.
No nasally autistic policy discussion is going to beat the Trump show. He's going to have to show himself to be the biggest, smartest, most well organized and well funded bastard in the race. He needs to make people believe that he can do what Trump only said he would do.
But we will see...
As for Pompeo , I don't have any issues with the guy. I've never really thought of him as a POTUS option... but at least he understand the IC and won't spend all term fighting with them over shit nobody cares about. 🤷♂️
IMHO and with respect as always
TL;DNR: Ron will be fine if he loosens up a little bit. Right now he's just too stiff.
“Miss Lindsey”
😂
The ones I know do... A lot.