Trump or Desantis? My Thoughts

Desantis running against Trump is a uniparty astroturf.

https://rumble.com/v1tsxao-trump-or-desantis-my-thoughts.html

I love them both but I lean Trump. I really would love to see a Trump Desantis ticket

Ask in 2024.

Not at all sure they go against each other. I think Trump doesn’t like DeSantis’ sense that DeSantis may run against Trump in 2024.

My choice: Trump! Tried and true.

DeSantis is still a politician & is untried at the level Trump has been tried.

I still love Trump but worry too many in the country are over him.
He only served the one term...but as he’s always in the news, loudly, it’s like he never left, publicity-wise.
If DeSantis takes himself out, as he may, then there’s no conflict.

Trump/DeSantis makes no sense. Trump doesn’t need help with Florida, and he must focus on the female vote after the Roe decision.

Should I know those people?

Look at the author.

Thanks! Loved them...but that was a lifetime ago.

I've been posting this for several months now:

As you may recall, when Obama ran he was faced with the same issue: being an "outsider" (an Illinois creature who won his elections by default, and with only two years in the Senate), he had no "Rolodex," meaning he didn't know anyone to fill out a staff. Bill Clinton had an entire Arkansas machine that he build up and brought with him to DC (including Vince Foster, who became disillusioned and was terminated).
George W Bush, being a Texas politician, inherited his father's political machine, but he still needed the "gravitas" of Dick Cheney to round out his ticket in DC.
Back to Obama, his solution to the "gravitas" problem was, after a long VP search, to select Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden was said to be bringing the DC political connections after 40 years in Congress that Obama lacked. They wanted Biden's Rolodex, and the price for it was Biden himself.
Fast-forward to Donald Trump and we have the same problem. Trump was a Big Donor for sure, but he was on the other side of the check, the writing side and not the cashing side. Trump relied heavily on the recommendations of Reince Priebus for his early appointments, perhaps too much so, but he (in my opinion), didn't know better. He did have a track record of loyalty to his executive staff, but that worked in a corporate setting where the c-level were compensated based on the success of the company. In DC, people are compensated based on the side deals they make from the power of the positions they hold, with lesser regard to the person who got them the position they now hold. In DC, getting the position is key; it's politically much harder to fire some than to appoint someone, because firing someone becomes an attack on the Senators who endorsed the nominee.
This brings us to the particular position of Chris Wray. Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and others made it clear to President Trump' whom they would support for certain positions, and who was off-limits for being fired. If there were any root-cause for this Sword of Damocles being held over Trump's head, it was his nomination of Jeff Sessions for Attorney General.
Trump was being loyal to Sessions for him being the first DC heavyweight to get on the Trump Train, and made Sessions the Attorney General. Some of us thought that Sessions, while a genial person with Biden-like connections in the Senate, was not a strong personality to hold such an important role in the administration. He may have been an effective Alabama "country lawyer" in his youth, but his casualness didn't serve him well in the federal positions he held until he became a Senator. Sessions would eventually undermine President Trump by so easily being duped by Democrat pressure to recuse himself at the beginning of the Russia hoax, instead of holding strong until he could see beyond the initial headwinds to assess what was really going on.
Ron DeSantis has a stronger background than Sessions:
DeSantis went to Yale and then Harvard Law School; Sessions went to Huntingdon College in Montgomery, and then the University of Alabama School of Law.
DeSantis joined the Navy, was an advisor to Seal Team One, and was deployed to Iraq for a year; Sessions joined the Army Reserve.
DeSantis was appointed by the Department of Justice to serve as a Special Assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Middle District of Florida until he was honorably discharged by the Navy; Sessions was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama.
President Reagan nominated Sessions to be the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama where he served for 12 years until Bill Clinton fired all of the US Attorneys.
DeSantis ran for and won a seat in the House of Representatives; Sessions became the Alabama Attorney General.
DeSantis ran for and won the Governor's race in Florida; Sessions ran for and won a Senate seat for Alabama.
I think comparing the CV's of DeSantis and Sessions, it suggests that DeSantis clearly has what some might call "the mettle of the man." DeSantis does appear to be the stronger-willed type, a product of Yale/Harvard/Navy training. That said, what he still lacks is the same DC insider experience that Obama, Bush, and Trump lacked; the Rolodex. DeSantis was only in Congress for five years (zero for Trump or Bush, two for Obama plus his stint in the Illinois statehouse).
Sure, DeSantis was a Founding Member of the House Freedom Caucus, but the Freedom Caucus (42 members at its peak) might be considered to be "fringe" when compared to the Congressional Black Caucus (57 members), the LGBTQ+ Caucus (175 members), the Congressional Progressive Caucus (95 members), and Non-Aligned Republicans (116 members).
Right now, DeSantis is "earning his chops" as Governor of Florida, a seat he won by barely beating charismatic black Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who was later discovered intoxicated in a hotel room containing crystal meth, a gay prostitute, and an overdose victim. ~~I hope that he's winning over more residents of Florida since taking office, and that he improves his turnout in 2022.~~ The fact that DeSantis overwhelmingly won reelection to a second term proves that DeSantis has the executive leadership skills to run the country.
The lesson that DeSantis needs to learn now is the story of George Allen of Virginia. After President Bush beat John Kerry in 2004 due to the so-called "values voter," Allen was seen as the next up-and-coming talent for 2008 and beyond. In law school, Allen was chairman of the "Young Virginians for Ronald Reagan," and his father was the famed NFL coach of the Los Angeles Rams and later the Washington Redskins. This made Allen the prime target for political kneecapping by Democrats when he ran for the Virginia Senate seat in 2006. Democrats hired hecklers to attend Allen rallies to try to goad him into making gaffes that they would record to use against him. One day, he retorted to a heckler "Macaca," his made-up word to essentially yell "Bull----!" back to the heckler (Trump would have just said it).
The Washington Post went on a search-and-destroy mission against Allen, using the word "macaca" to gin up story after story, for nearly three months, alleging racism, claiming that "macaca" referred to a Portuguese word for "monkey" (the heckler was of Indian descent). They even found references to Belgian slurs of African Congolese in the early 20th century colonial period. This all led to The Post successfully ending the Allen campaign and any chances of an Allen presidency, and struck a mortal blow to the rise of "values voters" as a faction until it reemerged as the Tea Party in 2010.
~~DeSantis needs to focus on his 2022 reelection as Florida Governor first.~~ Now that DeSantis won reelection, he needs to focus on keeping himself viable for future office. If DeSantis thought he was getting a bad rap during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and then again with the "Don't Say Gay" slurs, just wait until after the 2022 mid-terms when the Democrats turn their full force on DeSantis to try to clear the field for California's Gavin Newsom. You can bet that DeSantis will get the George Allen treatment x 100.
In my opinion, DeSantis can't be looking to a presidential run in 2024, he's going to have too much of a target on his back to take him out before then. DeSantis needs to be a Florida Governor first, a Trump supporter second to deliver Florida to Trump, and then a future presidential candidate third. DeSantis should be looking to 2028, meaning he should be looking for a position in the Trump administration for 2026 (or sooner), perhaps as President Trump's Attorney General. He can then leverage that position to build up his own Rolodex as the foundation for his presidential run in 2028.

-PJ

Neither... Noem

Good music is always good music. :)

Finally, a satanist weighs in.

My guess is DeSantis & team are thinking similar to your last paragraph.

Either...too early to get involved for me.

How about keep interest alive in the GOP prospects by having an old-fashioned horse race in the primaries?

I want my 2nd term of President Trump

I don’t understand Trumps hatred of Ron…he basically got the guy in office and since then Ron has pretty much enacted all of Trumps policies. Either he fixes whatever problems he has with Ron or Trump will slowly morph into old man who yells at cloud territory here.
The Youngkin stuff about his name sounding Chinese was just idiotic.