Donald Trump officially wages war against Florida governor "Ron DeSanctimonious"

DeSantis doesn’t need to go right at Trump he can just be cool and let Trump ruin himself even more.

 

That’s the way I see it as well. With as quickly has the GOP have turned on Trump, it may be a short-lived candidacy if the writing is on the wall.

 

You're assuming that Trump will behave like a rational politician. Although his election denial should have made it obvious that Trump is neither rational nor is he a normal politician, if he loses to DeSantis in the primaries he will try to bring Ron and the Party down rather rather than admitting defeat even if it means running a futile campaign as a 3rd party candidate. Along the same lines if Trump is defeated for the nomination it's almost a virtual certainty that he will behave as he has done in the past and blame his loss on voter fraud rather than admitting defeat keeping in mind that he did so following the Iowa Republican caucuses in 2016.
Anyone remember this?
Trump accuses Cruz of stealing Iowa caucuses through 'fraud'
Trump accuses Cruz of 'fraud,' calls for new Iowa election
Donald Trump Says Ted Cruz Stole Victory in Iowa Caucuses
If Trump runs for the Republican nomination and loses in 2024 you can take same headlines and simply replace the name "Ted Cruz" with "Ron DeSantis".

 

except he has $90M or so left in his PAC to fund an independent run

 

The elections are so close right now how do the Pubs win without the loyal Trump voters? They weren’t political before Trump. I think they are screwed but I’ve been wrong before.

 

Worked for Jeb. Oh wait.

 

The hard issue for Democrats. I think the Biden Presidency has been effective and that his age would not prevent an effective second term, especially if Ron Klain remains, which would be unusual but possible under the circumstances. It has been a very well run Administration, with even less drama than the famous no drama Obama.

But that doesn't mean his age is not an issue for voters. Dems would be committing political malpractice to ignore that.

The inside wisdom is that Biden's age is not a handicap against Trump and that he runs very well against Trump. But it is against DeSantis. But you can't wait to announce. So the Dems have a strong interest in figuring out who the Rep. nominee will be

 

I am shocked. Looks like Mitch is done. Even Marco has a knife on the steps. I think he has been a very effective partisan leader so I think they are making a big mistake, not the least of which is due to his fundraising and "spear catching" and the trust of the caucus.

But what do I know? Is this really Trump driven? Are they really blaming Mitch? Did he effectively abdicate when he outsourced to Scott? So much I have not seen explained

 

The reason they failed in the Senate is because they didn't listen to him and followed Trump, and now they are going to blame their failures on him?

 

it isn't his age, it is his mental acuity. he needs to go after this term.

I did read an interesting theory where he could replace Kamala with Newsome and then resign and leave Newsome as POTUS to establish himself on a national stage before the election.

 

Exactly my thoughts

 

I think he is effective, but I acknowledge many others likely will not see it similarly

 

i didn't say he wasn't effective, that is different than being electable, and his mental acuity will be working against him. Sad to say, the decline seems to be noticeable

 

Interesting constitutional issue is whether a president can replace the VP during his term in office. He could certainly do so when he runs for reelection, FDR did it three times. John Nance Garner was his first VP, Henry Wallace the second and Harry Truman the third. There has been speculation that Biden may replace Kamala when he runs for reelection but this is the first time I heard that he considering doing so during his term.

 

The interesting thing is that no President, no matter how "sharp", can be effective without a strong CoS and team. They are far more essential, IMO, than individual acuity, so long as it is functional.

The public facing aspects of the position are something else, obviously. Public speaking and the ceremonial aspects are important, obviously.

But the quality of decision process is only lightly dependent on the acuity of the individual office holder, but on the "system" s/he inspires and establishes that know his/her dispositions.

 

Jeb and DeSantis are not the same guys.

I firmly believe Jeb had the Bush name dragging him down, there was plenty of Bush fatigue. He was far more milk toast of a candidate.

 

Not saying that idea came from DC. I believe it was a dem operative floating the idea

 

I'm pretty surprised that Rick Scott hadn't gotten more blame for the Rs failures in their Senate races. After all he was Chairman of the Republican Senate Committee and his comments on cutting Medicare/SS didn't help either.

Hate the guy, but McConnell has been very effective getting the Rs agenda, esp stacking the courts.

 

Rick Scott has gotten some of the blame. Interestingly, McConnell does deserve a lot of the blame for the under performance of Republican candidates in the midterms although not for the reason that the Republican establishment as well as the Trumpers of the party are attributing to Mitch. They blame him for criticizing Trump's selection of candidates and not vigorously supporting them when in fact it was Mitch's "success" of packing the court resulting in the overturning Roe v. Wade that was probably the single most important factor in mobilizing Democratic voters and it may have even had the effect of flipping at least some female voters who would have otherwise voted Republican based on economic issues to the Dems.