Just last week I again thought about Ron DeSantis, the present Governor of Florida. He is obviously a smart guy … Yale undergrad, Harvard Law, a Naval officer who served in Iraq, an elected member of the U.S. House, before serving as the elected Governor of Florida since 2019.
He is obviously a very smart man.
During his Republican primary, back in 2018, DeSantis emphasized his support for Trump by running an ad in which DeSantis taught his children how to “build the wall” and say “Make America Great Again”. Asked whether he could name an issue on which he disagreed with Trump, DeSantis declined.
President Trump had said the previous month that he would support DeSantis should he run for governor
In April, 2020 Governor DeSantis was in the White House discussing Covid with then President Trump.
It sure seemed that DeSantis and Trump were on the same page.
DeSantis was masterful at managing Florida during Covid, and consequently in May, 2023 he announced that he was running for President.
But here recently I have been surprised that this political thoroughbred appears to be more like Beetlebomb. He has gone though two changes to his campaign staff, and from my point of view, is not acting like the smart person that I thought him to be.
Let’s think about the present situation logically. In “losing” the 2020 election, Donald Trump got over 70 million votes. A lot of those 2020 Trump voters will indeed vote for him again. At present in the polls Trump is leading DeSantis by a very large margin. The other Republicans who are “running for President” have actually entered themselves in the VP derby, as none of them will beat out either Trump or DeSantis to be the Republican nominee for President.
Now it is possible that something will change after all of these ludicrous legal charges have worked the way through the system. But I’m from Missouri.
What I cannot understand is why the DeSantis campaign sometimes says things that I find offensive when referring to Donald Trump. Let’s be clear. At the time that DeSantis declared that he was running, to me, it was clear that basically he was entering into the aforementioned VP derby. Okay, I get it … if for some reason Trump is not the Republican candidate, DeSantis is positioning himself to be the pinch hitter. But is he forgetting that Trump garnered 70 million votes back in November 2020. I wonder, “Is DeSantis’s campaign purposely trying to p.o a fair number of those 70 million?”
Why would such a smart guy be doing such dumb things?
After the recent Trump indictments in Georgia, DeSantis had to opportunity to come out strong, but instead made a milquetoast statement. Why be La-de-dah! when he had to opportunity to be strong?
8/18/23