If DeSantis is going to run a serious campaign for President he simply must respond to Trump’s constant bombardment of him on Fox News. It’s said he’s well financed but why doesn’t he respond? Retail politicking is fine but experience and history have shown that candidates who can’t or won’t respond to attacks have a narrative set in stone against them. A poorly run campaign so far, waiting so long to get in during which he was being attacked and still no response.
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Additionally, only around 60 percent of Trump voters say they would vote for DeSantis in a general election, raising questions over the Florida man’s ability to bring ‘MAGA’ voters into his coalition, were he to defeat Donald Trump in a primary.
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IT IS NOT ABOUT POLICY.
It is about the SWAMP. A vote for anyone but Trump aligns the GOP with the SWAMP even more than it is. We had Pence out there sneering in contempt at populism. That’s the GOPe’s perspective. Populism is little people.
Or . . . they haven’t read the definition.
As for supporting the nominee whoever it is, that’s laughable. Trump supporters have zero allegiance to the GOP. Why should they when it IS NOT ABOUT POLICY.
I won’t vote for anyone but Trump, and if Trump were killed before the election than anyone who stands up and says Drain the Swamp and Build the Wall and American First In All Things gets my vote. If that’s a Democrat, I don’t care.
The Swamp is the enemy. Not Democrats. It’s not clear to me at all that Swamp population is more Dems than GOP.
Governor DeSantis can't say he disagrees with anyone; not even on a single point.
If he (DeSantis) does, he will be accused of “stabbing so-and-so in the back.”
If DeSantis is going to run a serious campaign for President he simply must respond to Trump’s constant bombardment of him on Fox News. It’s said he’s well financed but why doesn’t he respond?
Short Answer - Because he can’t.
Longer Answer - He actually has responded to some of Trump’s attacks, but his responses have been tepid and not that effective.
There are two major reasons why he’s unable to respond effectively to Trump. First, he’s not that good at it. He doesn’t have the charisma to inspire people with his speaking. Anything he says invariably ends up sounding scripted, which it usually is.
Second, he’s boxed himself into a corner. His public persona, the image his campaign has embraced as its best chance at winning, is to portray him as someone who takes the high road, the adult in the room who’s focused on Biden and dismissive of Trump’s attacks as petty and irrelevant. He’s selling himself as Trump policies without the Trump baggage (i.e. Trump’s insults, etc.), so if he were to get into a truly heated back and forth with Trump it would undercut that message.
On top of that, Trump is simply more effective at those types of exchanges so DeSantis would very likely end up coming out the loser on that metric alone.