Posted on 09/08/2023 9:20:57 PM PDT by Drew68
It is highly unlikely that Governor DeSantis will win the GOP nomination. The recent Wall Street Journal poll has cemented this into my head.
Yet, I'm sticking with DeSantis until he's out of the race, whether that be on Election Day (unlikely) or he ends his campaign during the primaries (as of now, quite likely).
I'm sticking with him because nobody else has the record of conservative accomplishments and stalwart executive leadership that he has repeatedly demonstrated. I look for action, not words.
This being said, Governor DeSantis has showed himself to be poor campaigner. He just can't close the deal. And as much as I enjoyed the victories, I think his "war on woke" has hurt him.
The best chance he has now is to pivot to economic issues, which are Trump's strong points (at least for the first three years of his administration). But Florida has a booming economy as well, with a record $22 billion surplus last year.
This pivot will be a long shot and is unlikely to be successful because he would be going up against President Trump's strongest attributes.
This will be an election on the economy and when gas prices at the pump exceed $6-7/gallon next year (and I believe they will), Trump will remind us all that we were paying under $2/gallon for much of his first term. This is going to be a big selling point. If Trump screwed up everything in 2020, he had a booming economy with plenty of jobs and low interest rates prior to that. This can't be denied.
I am resigning myself to the reality that the primaries are essentially over and Trump will be the GOP nominee. And if he is, I will vote for Trump because at the end of the day, Trump is better than Biden. Hell, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Tim Scott, and Vivek Ramaswamy are better than Biden!
It's a shame though. GOP primary voters would rather be led by a cult of personality than a true executive leader with a record of accomplishments. It is what it is though.
I hope Trump can pull it off. His victory will depend on Biden voters staying home.
I hope that Trump can learn from his many mistakes and not repeat them.
I hope Trump can reconcile his disastrous record on COVID.
I hope that Trump can beat back against the myriad of unjust charges that he is currently facing.
Still, Ron DeSantis is the leader that Trump tries to be and that's the truth.
And when he keeps bashing DeSantis with lies, it only shows Trump as the sad, little man that he has become. He should as of now, stop being be this sad, little man.
I hope Trump can rise above this. As of now, he will earn my vote, but he needs to become a better man.
As I've said repeatedly on this forum, I live in the real world and not in fantasyland.
Well, here's the real world slapping us all in the face. The GOP nomination belongs to Donald Trump.
That's just how it is.
In normal times, yes DeSantis makes sense.
These are not normal times.
DeSantis made a huge mistake by not waiting until 2028.
He could’ve had DJT’s endorsement, and probably sailed into the White House.
I'll stick with DeSantis now, he has room to improve, starting with getting rid of Jeff Roe and Christina Pushaw. In any case, among the folks competing for the nomination, he is still the best and most outstanding choice.
I don’t agree that Desantis is a poor campaigner. I think that the 4 indictments have won Trump an impenetrable sympathy vote among Republican voters. In my opinion that is bad judgement by those voters, and we all will pay a heavy price for it.
Spent $35million/mo becoming unelectable in a race over 12months ago.
The better man whom’s campaign was another billionaire bankrolled get Trump epic failure.
How much will be blown in the primary that never was except in never Trumpland?
Billion dollars literally incinerated for nothing?
-asking for a friend.
Desantis NEVER had a shot.. None of the other also rans ever had a shot.
The primaries were cemented on Jan 7, 2021. As long as Trump decided to run, he was the nominee... anyone telling you anything else has been either flat out lying to you, or fully ignorant of reality.
All I can say personally is thank God he chose to run, the crowd running this time are even more pathetic than the batch running against him 2016.
In 2016 you could excuse them for not recognizing that the politicqal realities had shifted... the voters had pretty much followed their script for decades, the establishment/uniparty/globalists, had absolutely no reason to think 2016 would be any different, so just keep pushing the same old tired policies and rhetoric of Bush/Rove/Cheney et al.
In 2023, to still be pretending that reality has not changed, and realize just how far away from your base you actually are is flat out inexcusable.
DeSantis, was foolish to run... he voluntarily took himself from being an almost certain frontrunner in 2028, to likely never ever being able to be a serious national candidate with this absolutely abysmal and stupid campaign.
The establishment primary field is a clown show, and just prove daily why Trump will be the choice. Tucker destroyed every one of them with largely softball and simple questions... because what they stand for and want, has little if anything to do with where the electorate is. They are all just puppets for the money men, and its utterly obvious whenever they are asked even the most basic questions.
Hell they had a “debate” if you can call that circus a debate, and not a single question about election integrity was brought up... why? Simple, the uniparty doesn’t want election integrity, they don’t care, they just want control... Just like no one would be talking about illegals, the border, free trade, or any of the other things Trump ran on in 16, because he could.. no other candidate was going to touch that, no matter how bad those things were killing this country because the money men backing them wanted them.
Had Trump decided not to run, well the discussion would be different, but he did, and the minute he did the race was over.. Folks aren’t going to abandon Trump for any of these jokers, and reality is if any of these jokers are the nominee, Much of Trump’s supporters will simply stay home.
Trump was and is the only candidate with an R beside his name that has ANY real shot at winning the general election, his base is far larger than the GOP base, and is far far more enthusiastic. No other R can remotely bring in the votes Trump can, and those that claim otherwise... well they are just lying or willfully ignorant.
This. I still like Ronny D, and so wish he would have resisted whatever it was that tempted him to essentially abandon his current term as Florida Governor to campaign for President in 2024.
I attended one of DeSantis’ early events after announcing. Despite the Trump BS, he was engaging, detailed, and well-received. Yes, different than entertainer Trump. I’ve attended 5-6 of Trump’s events. I’ve watched many of both—too much time as I can almost quote their common statements and stories. Anyway, DeSantis is a breadth of fresh air, presidential. I am happy to support him, a fellow veteran.
DeSantis took himself out by his hubris. He didn’t do his due diligence in determining if he was ready for the Presidency. I like him, so I have nothing against him. He just wasn’t ready. He should have been been spending from now until 2028 prepping to be bigger and see how he goes.
Another term as Governor and he might have been ready.
If DeSantis wins the nomination, it is money well spent. As it is, they have been reaching out to lots of folks, I’ve received probably half-a-dozen handouts at my door supporting DeSantis, discovered to my surprise that a neighbor served with him in the military. All he has to do is outlast Trump now, else, come back in 2028.
Gov. D pulled the election trigger to soon. SIMPLE AS THAT!
The nomination has ALWAYS BELONGED TO TRUMP….PERIOD.
You are delusional.
Desantis is a TERRIBLE retail campaigner... You watch him on the stump, and he is absolutely abysmal. It’s pretty clear watching him delivering his stump speeches why he would have lost to a corrupt drug addict in 2018 if Trump hadn’t swooped in at the last minute to drag him over the finish line.
Desantis is just a very very bad retail politician, at least for someone who is gunning for the Presidency.
Sure he won re-election by 20 points... but he did so against Charlie Christ, a former Florida governor NO ONE WANTED... He was a turncoat.. Mickey Mouse would have beaten Christ in Florida, by a wide margin.
A guy who changed parties because he got beat in a Republican Primary... Then pretended to be an Independent before eventually going Democrat trying to continue his political career... No one in Fl wanted Christ... NO ONE..
Desantis would be eaten alive in true national campaign were he to be the nominee, he just doesn’t have it.... He is a smart guy and a competent executive, but he’s a TERRIBLE retail politician.
Desantis has been dropping since Jan, long before any indictments... that’s because back in Jan, folks didn’t know or see him if they were outside of FL, and they projected on him things that just weren’t there... the establishment was pushing him hard, and the more he got seen, the lower he polled... because he’s a louse retail politician.
I was a DeSantis fan. I cheered when he sent that plane to Martha’s Vineyard. I did not believe it when I heard the early rumors that he was going to throw his hat in the ring. It was so obviously a bad, bad move, just on the surface.
I still don’t understand how he thought he was going to get the MAGA base to vote for him after back-stabbing the MAGA founder and king, who is so loved for what he has gone through for the country. Most people still have integrity - you don’t do this to the guy who got you where you are today. It displayed his lack of character and unbridled hunger for his own political ambitions.
I still shake my head when I think of what DeSantis could have had by just waiting 4 years.
I’ve been very skeptical about DeSantis for a long time. Unfortunately for him, a lot of it is because he has many characteristics that remind me of feckless GOP losers from the past.
And none of what I’ve said really has anything to do with his skills on the campaign trail. I can’t really measure him objectively in that regard because I haven’t watched more than two minutes of his campaign appearances since the start of 2023.
Agreed.
DeSantis is not qualified.
Anyone with a political career is disqualified.
There is only one issue. Swamp membership. Nothing else.
Conservatism has always been defined as rejection of government intrusion into lives. How can a person with a Swamp immersed political career be conservative? They are the government that intrudes into life. Answer: Such a person cannot be Conservative And is not.
The world changed when Populism could no longer be offered up by the Swamp as some sort of derogatory term absent definition.
Once it got defined, it became clear it was admirable. And that was the end of the elite.
Now make no mistake here. There will be an attempt on Trump’s life. He knows how it all works now. With that experience he is the greatest threat that the Swamp has ever faced. They will kill to defend their careers.
In this context, it is the Secret Service who will decide the next president.
Reality didn’t slap me in the face. I knew this all along.
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