RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://spectator.org/trump-desantis-and-the-dangers-of-blind-loyalty/

“In 2024, we have a country to save. Any Republican who fails to vote simply because his candidate didn’t win the GOP presidential nomination is, for all intents and purposes, voting for Joe Biden and the corrupt regime he “leads.” Does anyone reading this really want that on his conscience?”

Now that Ron DeSantis has entered the race for the GOP presidential nomination, former President Trump and many of his supporters have accused the Florida governor of disloyalty. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, for example, has suggested that DeSantis’ political ambitions have caused him to lose sight of “values like loyalty.” The basis for this claim is that DeSantis somehow owes Trump a 21st century version of feudal fealty because the latter endorsed him during Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial race. This kind of nonsense plays into the hands of the Democrats.

President Biden is already portraying “MAGA Republicans” as a threat to democracy and any aversion to genuine competition between candidates during the GOP primaries reinforces that canard. Moreover, Trump’s petty personal attacks on DeSantis make the former president appear weak and many of his policy criticisms of the Sunshine State’s governor sound like Democratic talking points. He has claimed, for example, that New York’s disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo did a better job than DeSantis on COVID-19 policy. The latter responded to this risible assertion in an interview with the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro:

First of all, Florida had less excess mortality than California or New York. Part of that is because states like California had excess mortality derived from the lockdown policy, which is really, really avoidable mortality. But if he thinks Cuomo handled it better, that’s an indication if something like this were to happen again, he would double down and do what he did in March of 2020. That was a difficult situation. We didn’t have all the facts … but we all have to sit here today in 2023, look back on March of 2020 and say, Faucism was wrong. Faucism was destructive.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4020502-ron-desantis-the-good-the-bad-and-the-beautiful/

His campaign launch was something of a bust, but Ron DeSantis is nonetheless the man of the hour.

Through a conversation with Elon Musk hosted on Twitter Spaces that struggled to cope with an overwhelming audience, and in subsequent interviews on Fox News, Florida’s governor finally declared that he is running for president. In effect, he declared war on frontrunner Donald Trump. His supporters say it’s about time — Trump long ago declared war on him.

There has probably never before been a presidential candidate who has been so pummeled and bruised before even stepping into the ring. DeSantis has taken it on the chin not only from Trump but also from Democrats.

Why this pounding? Because all parties know DeSantis is a formidable, young and accomplished candidate with a superb record and CV who absolutely can beat President Biden. Polling says so, and so does common sense.

In late April, a poll showed that Biden would wallop Trump in a head-to-head but lose to DeSantis. More important, that same survey showed Florida’s governor beating Biden in most critical swing states; only in Wisconsin are the two men running neck and neck.

Of course, polls are changeable, and DeSantis has lost ground in recent months as Trump has vilified him, running nasty, mud-slinging ads about his votes in Congress and disparaging his accomplishments as governor.

Last fall, Trump warned DeSantis not to get in the race, threatening to dish “things” that were not “very flattering” about the governor. A day later, he called him a “fine guy.” Responding to the recent entry of Tim Scott into the race, Trump posted, “Tim is a big step up from Ron DeSanctimonious, who is totally unelectable.”

Trump’s unanswered parries have taken a toll, but do not count DeSantis out. Part of Trump’s surge in the polls has stemmed from what many feel are the politically inspired legal attacks on the former president. Outrage about what appears to be two systems of justice, while maddening, will only take Trump so far. Will a majority of the country really support a man who has now been found guilty of sexual assault?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ron-desantis-presidential-race-2024-donald-trump-florida-90b2c2e4?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The unfortunate political reality today is that the U.S. is marching toward a 2024 rematch between two aging Presidents, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, that most Americans say they don’t want. This great country can do better, but it’s up to voters to spare us from the divisive oldsters who desperately need each other to win a second term.

At least for now, the Democratic Party is defaulting to 80-year-old President Biden. But even most Democrats prefer a new nominee, and nearly 30% are making that point by telling pollsters they support the vanity candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Marianne Williamson. It’s not far-fetched that Mr. Biden will decide not to run, or that some serious candidate might challenge the President if there’s a deep recession, or he shows even more noticeable physical or mental decline.

***

Republicans are at least getting a better choice as a variety of candidates enter the presidential race. They all have their merits and deserve a hearing as the campaign unfolds. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joined the fray on Wednesday and, judging by the polls and his financial backing to date, he is the biggest threat to Mr. Trump.

The 44-year-old has an impressive resume: son of middle-class parents, Yale baseball captain, Harvard law school, Navy veteran including a tour in Iraq, and a three-term Member of Congress. But he has made his mark politically with his record as the two-term Governor of booming Florida.

https://thespectator.com/politics/desantis-giant-orange-roadblock-trump-2024-musk/

To win the Republican nomination, you have to knock out Donald Trump. That’s no easy task — polls currently show him leading by over thirty points among Republican voters. But the task is even harder because anyone who defeats Trump must win over his supporters to win the general election. That is Ron DeSantis’s double challenge: beating Trump without alienating his voters.

Trump will make both tasks as hard as possible. He is not just the least graceful loser in modern American history, he has retired the trophy. (Elon Musk retired the trophy for worst media rollout of a live presidential event. Unfortunately for DeSantis, it was his grand announcement.)

Why do Trump’s primary opponents fear his wrath? Because his vitriol sways his followers, and he still has a lot of them. Republicans running for president know that Trump stands between them and the nomination. They know, too, that Trump’s political career has been focused on his opponents’ defects, not his own accomplishments. He will do everything he can to smear his opponents, whatever their party.

This rhetoric rallies the base but holds little appeal for independents, who are crucial to winning the general election. But to get to the general election, you have to get past the giant orange roadblock. The first step is to become the leading alternative to Trump. Right now, that’s Florida’s successful governor, Ron DeSantis, so it’s worth looking closely at his strengths and weaknesses.

DeSantis’s strengths are formidable, beginning with his electoral victories and effectiveness in office. His political success is straightforward. He turned a purple state into a solid red one, winning a massive reelection victory and carrying a supermajority into the state house.

His policies are a mixture of traditional conservative and Trumpian populist measures. That program overlaps with the former president’s but differs in two crucial ways. First, DeSantis managed to pass his priorities into law, thanks to his success with down-ballot candidates. Primary voters will note that he didn’t compromise to win those victories, either. Second, DeSantis took hold of state agencies and got them to implement his policies, not obstruct or delay them. He governed.

Beyond those overarching achievements, DeSantis has a long list of specific accomplishments to run on.

Economic growth tops the list. Under DeSantis, Florida has become is the national poster child for economic growth, business formation, and in-migration from high-tax, high-regulation states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Illinois, all governed by Democrats. While Florida ranks top for inward migration, Gavin Newsom’s California wins the U-Haul Prize for outward migration.

Also high on the list is his pandemic success. DeSantis kept Florida schools and businesses open during most the pandemic. Other states shut down, under strong pressure from the federal bureaucracy and iron-fisted “guidance” from the CDC. Florida resisted and proved right. As the governor will remind voters, the bureaucracies that shut them down their lives were part of the Executive Branch, and that branch was led by Donald Trump during the darkest days of Covid.

DeSantis won’t have any trouble getting his message out. He can raise a ton of campaign money, thanks to his success in Florida and his lead position as Trump’s opponent. He won’t have any trouble convincing Republican primary voters he is tough as nails and ready to go up against powerful, entrenched interests. His slogan, “Never back down,” says it, and his fight against Disney backs it up.

DeSantis can also credibly claim he represents a new generation of Republican leaders. That’s not because he looks decades younger than Trump and a millennium younger than Biden. It’s also DeSantis’s agenda. His program is all about the country’s next steps forward, an attribute he shares with every Republican candidate except one.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/25/the-republican-primary-is-wide-open-and-thats-a-good-thing/
“In our view, healthy competition is good. Arguments and debates are clarifying. Primary battles are revealing. Which is why so few early front-runners end up capturing the nomination. Also, no matter what happens in 2024, Trump will eventually have to make room for the next generation of conservative leaders, and the primaries let them move into the spotlight now. So, the idea of short-circuiting the process now is short-sighted.”

After working hard to keep Ron DeSantis from entering the presidential primary at all, Donald Trump now is trying to make the case that the Florida governor has no chance of winning.

Trump might believe it – though his barrage of attacks against DeSantis suggests otherwise. But anyone who thinks that the Republican primaries are over long before they even get started needs a lesson in history.

When news broke earlier this week about DeSantis’ plan to enter the race, Trump immediately posted a series of links on Truth Social. One led to an article about Trump’s lead in the polls, another to a Gateway Pundit article telling DeSantis to stand down “for the good of the country.” Still another to a Fox News segment in which Brett Baier said that “right now former President Trump controls the environment, he controls the base, and he controls the messaging” and that “something has to change dramatically” for DeSantis or anyone else to have a chance.

But remember. It’s not even June. The Iowa caucuses are still seven months away. The conventions are more than a year in the future. And polls this early on are notoriously unreliable as a predictor of the eventual nominee, much less who will end up winning the election the following November.

Don’t believe it? Well, among Democrats, in the past nine open elections, polls from January through June in the year before those elections accurately predicted the nominee just three times.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/24/can-trump-escape-the-maga-extremist-label-ii-tipp-poll/

It has become increasingly common to hear both the media and Democratic politicians describe so-called MAGA followers of Donald Trump as “extremists.” Whether true or not, that label appears to have stuck among a large share of the American electorate and could pose a major challenge for Trump going forward, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

In early May, we asked Americans the following question: “Do you agree or disagree with describing Trump supporters as MAGA extremists?” The online poll of 1,480 adults across the country was taken from May 3-5. The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points.

The overall results suggest a possible electoral hurdle for the Trump campaign: Among those queried, 50% agreed that Trump supporters could be described as “MAGA extremists.” Roughly 39% said they disagreed.

Broken down a bit further, 34% said they “strongly agreed,” while 27% said they “strongly disagreed.” Another 16% said they agreed “somewhat,” versus 12% said they disagreed somewhat.

Not surprisingly, there was an overwhelming response depending on a person’s political affiliation. Some 70% of Democrats called MAGA followers “extremist,” compared with just 24% of Republicans and 46% of independents.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/sen_tim_scott_officially_throws_his_hat_in_the_ring__and_does_an_impressive_interview_fox_news.html

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott officially declared his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in Charleston, S.C. yesterday. (See Andrea Widburg’s first-person account of the event here.)  Later that evening, he appeared live for an interview with former S.C. Rep. Trey Gowdy, who is hosting the 8 PM ET hour on the FOX News channel this week.

Scott has served as the junior U.S. Senator representing South Carolina since 2013.  He is what used to be called a Dark Horse in the race (no pun intended). He is a youthful looking 57, and represented his state in local and state politics before being appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2013 by Gov. Nikki Haley, who is herself a candidate for next year’s Republican presidential nomination. Scott has won re-election three times to the U.S. Senate.

Scott’s interesting and impressive background and career are reasonably and fairly objectively documented at his Wikipedia bio. The lengthy page and the references it cites are a compelling read. My impression of Scott over the years, confirmed by the chronology and highlights of his career, is that he is a man of deep conviction who is extremely articulate in expressing his conservative viewpoint.

And so it was when he appeared on the FOX News channel Monday evening (video here). Needless to say, he received a cordial reception from his former Republican colleague in the Congress, Trey Gowdy, who was guest hosting the hour on FOX for the first of five nights from New York City.  On Sunday nights for the past year, Gowdy has hosted Sunday Night in America from Charleston, S.C., on FOX at 7 PM ET, sometimes repeated later in the evening.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/paula-bolyard/2023/05/22/desantis-may-not-be-topping-the-polls-yet-but-floridians-are-enjoying-a-lot-of-winning-n1697280

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to enter the presidential race this week, ending months of speculation about his future plans.

For reasons perhaps known only to him, former President Trump has decided to let DeSantis live rent-free in his head, spending hours and hours on social media attacking the Florida governor while virtually ignoring the real enemy—Joe Biden. (If you don’t believe me, go check out Trump’s Truth Social account. Where is the criticism of the Biden administration?)

And it’s not just social media. Trump’s Super PAC is spending an unprecedented amount of money on attacking DeSantis and not Biden.

Don’t miss that last bit: Trump’s SuperPAC dropped “$2.8M on attack ads, bringing their anti-DeSantis spend to $15.3M and blowing past the $15M MAGA, Inc. spent on all 2022 midterm races.” [Emphasis added]

In other words, Trump has spent more money attacking a fellow Republican than he did trying to win back a Senate majority for the Republicans.

https://hotair.com/headlines/2023/05/21/ice-cube-suggesting-blacks-leave-the-dem-party-n552199

Rapper and Hollywood actor Ice Cube has called on black Americans to reconsider voting for the Democrat Party because “nothing has changed.”

Ice Cube, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson, appeared on Full Send Podcast with hosts Kyle Forgeard and Steiny Steinberg, where he voiced his political views and criticisms of the Democrat Party.

Ice Cube has been working to bridge the gap between politicians and grassroots movements with projects like “Contract with Black America.”

In 2020, the rapper faced backlash for working with then-President Trump on his plan for black Americans.

Ice Cube defended working with Trump at the time, tweeting, “Every side is the Darkside for us here in America. They’re all the same until something changes for us. They all lie, and they all cheat, but we can’t afford not to negotiate with whoever is in power, or our condition in this country will never change. Our justice is bipartisan.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/another_mistake_in_new_york_nearly_a_million_registered_voters_become_democrats.html

An upstate New York printing company on a no-bid contract mailed out voter registration cards to New York’s Nassau County voters ahead of the June 27 primary — and somehow, everyone who got one is now a registered Democrat.

That’s weird stuff given that 60% of the registered voters in that county are Republican. Well, now they are all Democrats, at least until “corrected” registration cards can be mailed out.

Hey, just a flub, they’re saying. Nothing to see here, move along.

According to the New York Post:

An upstate printer has once again screwed up downstate election materials, this time by mailing registration cards to Nassau County’s nearly 1 million voters — identifying them all as Democrats.

“It’s a terrible error. People are upset. People are angry. There is a lot of confusion,” GOP County Executive Bruce Blakeman seethed at a Tuesday press conference.

Democrats make up about 40 percent of the county’s 972,000 voters, according to state Board of Election records from February.

Blakeman, though, who runs the Republicans, is a piece of work.

He can be heard dismissing his own party voters’ concerns as emotionalism and assuring everyone else that there’s nothing to see here, just a little printer error that doesn’t involve elected officials (who gave that company its no-bid contract):