by Kurt Schlichter, Townhall:
When Ron DeSantis is consulting renowned experts about whether or not to run for president in 2024, the man he is most likely to listen to is President Chris Christie. Well, not literally listen. He’ll instead learn from the potential prezzy who ended up presiding in network green rooms instead of the White House because he declined to run when he had his big – well, everything about him is big – chance in 2012. The Gov will also look to the lessons of President Mario Cuomo. These two guys hesitated and missed their window, just like there are some folks – Mitt Romney, John Kerry, Felonia Milhouse von Pantsuit – who never actually had a window at all yet still tried to dive through one and ended up defenestrating themselves.
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Remember a decade ago when we had Christiemania, when he was a breath of fresh air blowing away lib pieties after an improbable New Jersey governor win? And instead of striking while the presidential iron was hot, he failed to go for it, and now he will never be president of anything except maybe the International Society to Prevent Cardio. Mario Cuomo similarly blew it in the 80s. He was the Dem candidate who sped up the Dems’ heartbeats with his unapologetic defense of liberal values. He had his shot, and played Hamlet, and never became president. Today, he’s remembered only for being the father of two big creeps.
The 2024 cycle is undoubtedly Ron DeSantis’s moment. He won a first election that everyone expected him to lose as the governor of the Free State of Florida. He will win a crushing victory over secret lizard-person Charlie Crist this November. And he has set about owning the libs hard not merely by humiliating them for their hypocrisy with awesome moves like sending illegals to Martha’s Vineyard but with substantive conservative policies that are sucking the remaining productive people out of hellscapes like New York and California.
He has governed like a conservative, and he has the receipts. Florida works. Its kids went back to school while blue state bosses were still sacrificing their own kids’ futures to the garbage teacher unions. He is fighting wokeness and its poisonous CRT ideology. He treats the media like what it is – a pack of flunkies. And when he picks fights, he wins them. The base loves him. The polls bode well, to the extent polls are not mere onanism.
If Donald Trump was not still in the picture, he would be the unquestioned frontrunner. But Donald Trump is in the picture.
And he has every right to be. Let’s cut the baloney the regime media keeps serving up. This was a great president who made huge substantive improvements to the country. By defeating Bill Clinton’s wizened baby oven – maybe – Trump literally saved the Constitution. And he would have done even more but for an indisputably questionable election and the unprecedented, fully-fascist attacks of the Establishment and their media and bureaucratic allies.
There are good reasons for Trump to run, and good reasons for him not to, and none of them matter because the decision is Trump’s. The smart money says he will go for it.
So, does Ron DeSantis step up to the 800-pound Gorilla Channel fan for a clash of the titans?
There are rumors that he has promised not to run if Trump does. Do not believe them. There is wishcasting to the effect that he would take the veep slot. It won’t happen.
The fact is that this is DeSantis’s time to score the Big Enchilada.
He is never going to be better positioned than right after his smashing reelection victory. He will have the momentum, he will have the excitement, and he will have the bully pulpit as governor of America’s most vibrant state.
He’s young (44) and he could wait, in theory. But why? Youth is part of his sell, and that applies both to the relatively youthful Trump and especially to crusty Grampa Badfinger should he run again (which he seems to want to do). And after getting the nomination, some Democrat is going to have to spend the campaign explaining how inflation, foreign defeat, and an open border are actually good things. With potential competition like Crusty, Kamala, or that supply chain superhero/scourge of “racist roads” Buttigieg, DeSantis would have to try to lose.
