Ron DeSantis. Death Of An “Imitation” Presidential Campaign

You know, when they talk about certain notorious characters like Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, and Gary Gilmore, the general opinion of most bystanders and observers is something akin to, There is no bottom to the wellspring of evil and depravity in that man’s heart and soul. But when you look at somebody like The Teeny Tyrant of Florida, you’re left shaking your head and saying, You know, there is no bottom to the wellspring of stupidity in that man.

It took a while, but I finally nailed DeathSantis for what he is. A MAGAt before there was MAGA. He rode the Tea Party Revolution of 2010 into congress using performance art instead of politics, and he’s never stopped using performance art since. Former GOP colleagues in the US House remember mostly how they didn’t even know he was there most of the time. He spent all of his time fundraising and on self aggrandizement towards his next election.

Pissantis shamelessly pimped his own family in a campaign ad to curry Trump’s endorsement in his first run for Governor, and it worked. MSNBC in particular has had great fun showing how Pissantis has carefully groomed himself to be a Trump Mini Me (literally), but showing side-by-sides of DeSantis’s speech motions and facial expressions almost perfectly imitating Trump’s.

But you know what? It worked. Whatever you think of Pissantis, he was able to pass himself off as Trump without the baggage simply because he, like famed impersonator Rich Little, was able to mimic Trump almost perfectly. DeSantis rose in early polls because he could come closer than anybody else in recreating Trump’s cult of personality, and he had his own state to showcase his governing brilliance. Pissantis even created his own catch phrase, WOKE! with which to blame every social justice, race, or liberal issue, trying to capitalize on Trump’s stranglehold on white grievance. And two weeks before his disastrous rollout on Elon Musk’s Tweeter, some polls had DeSantis within two points of Trump.

So what went wrong? Well, a few things, and it started early. For one thing, coveting Trump’s 2016 success, Desantis spent the next six years doing everything in his power trying to make himself into a perfect clone of Trump, like a Vegas show room performer trying to recapture the genius of Elvis. And you can get away with it if you’re good enough. Trouble is, once DeSantis announced his candidacy, he had to leave Florida, and be compared by voters and the media directly with Trump, who was also campaigning. sorta. And as even Rich Little learned, it’s kind of hard to look and sound exactly like Robert DeNiro when DeNiro is standing right next to you. Why pay to see an imposter if you can see the real thing?

Next, early DeSantis deep pocket donors went into this suffering from false pretenses. They were under the impression that DeSantis was going to run as a kind of a hybrid between the George W Bush of 2000, and the Trump of 2016 before he went off the rails and started doing stupid sh*t. Instead Pissantis made the tactical decision to attack Trump from the right, making himself look like the only one in the room even more batsh*t crazy that Traitor Tot. Which was not going to get him any hard core Trombies, and only scared off more moderate Trump supporters who thought he was supposed to be the sane one! Deep pocket donors started worrying about throwing good money after bad.

And it’s not like DeathSantis is some kind of financial savant. The basics of running for President are simple. Have Money! Devote all of your time and energies on Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina while you aggressively fundraise. Because if you tank in those first three states, you ain’t gonna be around for Super Tuesday anyway. Walk before you run, Grasshopper.

But Pissantis is worse with money than my ex wife. He started spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave in Singapore. Clearly trying to match Trump’s over weaning ego, but without his organization, DeSantis hired some 100,000 beaters to go from door-to-door, and set up paid campaign staff and opened campaign offices in Super Tuesday states, which is now starting to look like pissing into a fan, and hoping you don’t get wet.

DeSantis’s own ego and hubris are killing him. From the day he was sworn in in 2019, DeSantis started governing solely with an eye towards building his resume for a presidential run. Let’s be clear, DeSantis couldn’t govern his way out of a closet with the door open. Everything he sent to his lap poodle Florida GOP legislature was designed purely to capitalize on white grievance, and give him with photo ops to burnish his presidential creds. And when Trump lost in 2020, DeSantis ramped up the insanity for his 2024 run.

And DeSantis lives to tout his myriad of successes in the free state of Florida. Just one problem. DeSantis is a moron. That’s why so many of his photo of laws keep getting their asses kicked in court. And worse, he’s pissing everybody in Florida off. Teachers and students are going on protests on a regular basis over his anti WOKE school curriculums. His anti immigrant law, which stopped just short of issuing hunting licenses on undocumented immigrants has immigrants leaving the state in droves, leaving Florida construction companies short of entry level workers, and leaving Florida produce growers facing the prospect of produce rotting in the fields. These aren’t the governing skills that deep pocket donors are looking for.

But it all comes down to one simple thing. DeSantis. Isn’t. Trump. Trump has spent some 50 years making himself as much of a media personality as a real estate failure. His decade without an Emmy as the start of The Apprentice let him polish his on camera skills and persona, even at the expense of content and relevance.

Ron DeSantis isn’t Trump. What Ron DeSantis is is an uber *sshole. As I’ve written previously, to know Ron DeSantis is to not want to know Ron DeSantis. He has the personality of a whiny, petulant 3 Y.O. with colic, the same as Trump, but without the bad boy appeal. He has the temperament of a rabid honey badger, and the patience of a lab experiment. Ron DeSantis on video, or in childish campaign ads was kind of like those stupid Limu Emu with Doug commercials, an acquired taste of dumb. But every time he opens his mouth on his own, it’s like a toxic site fire cloud, deadly to any campaign.

And now we’re being treated to The DeSantis Campaign v 2.0. The pint sized pretender has fired some staff, shuffled some money, made some phone calls to reassure skittish donors, and announced a revamped focus on retail politics and relevant issues for primary voters. Swell. But for all of the sturm und drang, there’s just one thing that Ron DeSantis can’t change. Ron DeSantis. And William Shakespeare could have encapsulated it perfectly by writing, Alas poor Ronald, we knew you too well.