Inside the '24 GOP Struggle as Trump, DeSantis, Haley, and TBDs Assemble Early
The Republican National Convention to nominate a presidential candidate is 65 long weeks away – 10,944 hours, to be precise.
So, it is ludicrously premature to make any judgments or conclusions about the crucial outcome in Milwaukee that will shape America’s history for years to come, for better or worse.
This is especially true because the divisiveness, anger, fears, and decaying mental condition of the current White House incumbent have combined to create an unusually uncertain political, economic, and mental climate for the rest of us to try ignoring in our daily lives.
And the juvenile gamesmanship and geriatric leadership of our two short-sighted political parties in Congress offer no comfort whatsoever.
However, we can detect some certainties already emerging.
First, Donald Trump is not going away. He is the elephant lurching around the nation’s living room trying to become only the second president in historyto lose reelection and win the next one.
Trump’s skilled but often inchoate showmanship and unpredictable behavior make him a media magnet, which he covets almost as much as the media that loves to hate him for the busine$$ he generates.
Trump sucks up so much of the media oxygen that competitors in his adopted party have — and will continue to have — trouble breathing life into their candidacies. Plus, he now has the experience and aura of the presidency, which none of them have.
Watch for the media to turn everything into a horserace with someone always falling back or gaining strength, anything to look new and attract readers when nothing really has changed. They’re already reporting DeSantis sliding, when he’s still weeks from launching.
Millions of Americans, not just Republicans, retain a genuine appreciation for the many policy achievements of Trump’s years in office. And that’s not just our now deceased energy independence, our now threatened income tax cuts, the absence of crippling inflation and new foreign military adventures, and the caution that his diplomatic unpredictability forced down the throats of adversaries such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jung-Un.
Trump will be 78 next year, the same age as Joe Biden when he became the oldest president ever in 2021.
But the often obstreperous and generous billionaire has never displayed any of the physical and mental infirmities and confusions of Biden, the shuffling old-man gait that reveals a fear of falling, the inability to read a jumbo teleprompter coherently, and the confusing rhetorical ad-libs that go nowhere but Silly City.
In fact, in the closing campaign days of 2020, while Biden cowered in his Delaware basement, Trump was doing three major rallies a day in as many states.
Americans want to see candidates who really want the Oval Office job. They also want candidates to talk about the future, not past disappointments or grievances. Yes, fishy things did occur in the 2020 results, though nothing on a scale that would change the outcome.
Trump needs to move on, as most voters have.
Likewise, Biden, the career legislator, needs to accept that Americans will never sincerely appreciate his legislative legerdemain that spent in excess of $5 trillion in newly-printed money to ignite the lingering inflation that’s taxing everyone still, inflation that he promised would not happen.
Reader Advisory: Biden also has assured everyone that a major recession is not looming, as he assured all that inflation was a mere blip.
It may well not be true, but he wants it that way. A recession would create a disaster for this president, especially if the GOP picks a vibrant, disciplined nominee who can articulate specific solutions.
Biden revealed last week he has yet again postponed his campaign announcement, possibly into the fall. It could go even later. This is one of those vows that the more it’s repeated, the less credible it seems.
Very little of what Biden says is true. I have a sneaking suspicion in the end he won’t run. But holding off as long as possible has several advantages for him. It avoids the lame duck label longer while keeping Democrat challengers off the field.
It delays the impact of federal fundraising restrictions. It allows him to play commander in chief longer, seemingly unsullied by suspicions that everything he says and does is a campaign tactic, which it is. But play along, folks. He’s old.
It saves Biden’s reduced physical strength that already requires short weeks and abbreviated workdays punctuated by weekly vacations in Delaware doing no one knows what. And it reduces the time he can commit countless campaign gaffes, while allowing sympathetic media to focus full-time on GOP infighting.
It also allows not him, but aides actually aware of what’s going on, to study the field longer. Who knows, another Trump indictment could come along, though recent polling indicates the fake targeting one in Manhattan actually boosted Trump’s support. It certainly prompted a multi-million-dollar donation wave.
Biden’s campaign is praying the GOP field becomes huge, fragmenting the anti-Trump vote and greasing the way for another Trump nomination, as it did in 2016’s 17-candidate field.
So far, the GOP field includes Trump, 76; Nikki Haley, 51; Vivek Ramaswamy, 37; and Asa Hutchinson, 72, who without much organization had to announce his campaign launch on a Sunday talk show without a swarm of cheering supporters and media. Mike Pompeo and Larry Hogan have opted out.
But Tim Scott, 57, looks likely to enter. Other serious possibilities include Mike Pence, 63; Chris Sununu, 48; Glenn Youngkin, 56; and, of course, Ron DeSantis, 44.
I say, of course, because the Florida governor, who won overwhelming reelection in November, has built a strong reputation for numerous conservative achievements including some significant anti-woke battles and turning the one-time swing state into a solid red one.
Though he’s unlikely to announce before the end of his legislative session next month, the House and Navy veteran is quietly making the necessary arrangements for the colossal undertaking of a presidential campaign. He was in New Hampshire this weekend.
As of now, DeSantis’ entry would make the GOP primary contest essentially a two-man race with the former allies running on the far side of the track and the others still by the starting line deep in single-digit support.
But remember I said above that “now” is ridiculously early.
DeSantis trails his fellow Floridian by double digits, and the governor is largely untested on the national stage. Can he hold up under the intense spotlight and vetting of a hostile national media that would prefer Trump’s raucous style?
DeSantis’ supporters describe him as Trump without the drama. But at the first GOP debate on Fox come August in Milwaukee, how would DeSantis answer serious questions beyond Florida issues: The war in Ukraine, trade policies toward China, sanctions on Iraq, abortion, immigration, electric cars, and the Southern border?
As well as the evergreen gotchas like the current price of milk and eggs and the names of foreign leaders that tripped up Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush.
Primary campaigns are intentionally rigorous mentally and physically. A senile Joe Biden can get away with gaffes like calling a town hall questioner a derogatory term or confusing the names of two flyover states. Iowa, Ohio, both four letters. What’s the difference?
Remember in 2008, Hillary Clinton was caught planting written questions with audience members so she could extol the crowd with her rehearsed talking points. And Barack Obama boasted in Oregon that he’d visited all 57 states with one more to go.
But they’re Democrats. So, it’s OK.
Let a Republican like Gov. Rick Perry on-stage forget the name of one federal department, and he’s dead-candidate walking.
Our schools downplay the study of history. But what’s already happened in our national life is also key to understanding contemporary politics, even in an age of unpredictability.
In the 2015-16 cycle, the Pew Research Center found great fluidity in candidate support. Virtually every Republican voter changed their mind at least once during the primaries, some more than that.
At various stages, polling found Jeb Bush, Rick Perry, and Dr. Ben Carson in front.
At this equally early point in 2015, Sen. Ted Cruz was atop a Republican primary field of 15 with Gov. Scott Walker right behind. The next highest was No Opinion at 13 percent.
A New York businessman named Trump wasn’t even on the early list. He was still two months out from announcing.
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