It was always supposed to be a two horse race between Traitor Tot and Flop Gov. Others, including myself saw a lane for a single sane conservative. If the single sane candidate could coalesce the anti Trump vote, and if DeathSantis did nothing more than sop up all of the soggy Trump voters who are on the fence, then the moderate could just squeak across the delegate finish line. If now, it still would likely set up a filthy floor fight at the Republican convention.
There are a couple of reasons for this. For starters, His Lowness, clearly distracted by his legal and financial troubles, is hell-bent-for-leather to mire himself in a competitive race. He is a near, if not total no-show in the two most retail politics states in the country, Iowa and New Hampshire. And it’s showing. Especially since the Iowa state fair and the first debate, when reporters ask Trump supporters for their take on the race, the two words they most often hear is I’m open. Trump is taking them for granted, and his base alone isn’t enough to get him to the promised land.
Second, say what you will about the rest of the single-digit-darlings, they’re out there busting their asses off. Chris Christie has almost taken out a mortgage on a nice little Cape Cod in New Hampshire. Pissantis is still on hi bus tour trying to hit every Iowa county, but it’s slow going because sheriffs keep putting patrol cars across the road to keep him from getting through. Pence is driving desperately around, looking for anybody who will shake hands and talk to him for five minutes, where he sounds like the drunk in the bar retelling for the 50th time how he singlehandedly won the big game in high school by scoring a touchdown. Rattysnotty is hitting up what look to be county fairs and roadhouses, and letting his racist freak flag fly. And Hayley and Scott keep tripping over each others shoelaces wherever they go.
The critical thing is that all of these feckless dreamers are at least out there trying! And it’s starting to have an effect. Trump still leads, but his lead isn’t growing. And as the remaining combatants start swinging sharper elbows at Il Douche, one word is starting to sneak into the minds of Iowa and New Hampshire voters. Loser. Even without directly naming Trump, the other candidates are preaching that it’s time to turn the page after the humiliations of 2018, 2020, and 2022. And only one candidate in the field meddled in all three of those.
Coming out of the first debate, there are a couple of polls that I’ve seen now that shoe that the race may finally be starting to shake out. And it looks like it’s going to shake out to be a three man race after all. Just that two of the three aren’t who we may have expected. Trump is still cruising, but that’s all, and after a miserable debate performance, Flop Gov is still flatlined and circling the drain. But look who definitely got a bump from the debate! Nikki Hayley and Vivek Rattysnotty. They’ve basically caught DeSantis for 2nd place.
There’s your gruesome threesome. Little Caesar is dead in the water. He flopped in the debate, then had to go home to deal with a mass shooting and a hurricane, and what do voters get? Scenes of DeSantis getting booed off the grounds by his own constituents. After New Hampshire Governor Krispy Kreme has nowhere to go. Tim Scott can be inspirational until the cows come home, but the GOP primary base doesn’t want inspirational, they want blood sacrifice. The people who admire Mike Pence’s principled stand on January 6th aren’t the Trump voters he needs, and what should be his base sees him as a spineless wimp toady of Trump. And, Asa who?!
Nikki Hayley has work to do, but she got a post debate bump for a reason. She scored heavy points on Pence by slamming his national abortion plans reminding him that it takes 60 votes in the senate to pass an abortion ban, and he won’t have 60 votes, so stop blowing pixie dust up women voters *sses. She took a piece out of DeSantis’s hide, and for good measure slapped down Rattysnotty for his infantile programs and solutions. The sooner the rest of the moderates bugger off, the sooner she can get to work consolidating the moderate votes.
But it was Rattysnotty who was the surprise in the bottom of the Cracker Jack box. Rattysnotty came off for exactly what he is. Another loud, racist, sexist billionaire with the IQ of tapioca, and programs and positions he got off of the inside of a Chinese fortune cookie. How many of those does the GOP need in one presidential primary? But mark my words, now that rattysnotty has his sea legs under him, he’s going to mop the floor with Pissantis. Here’s why.
From day one, DeSantis’s entire campaign platform has been Trump without the baggage. What a boxcar load of bullsh*t! Pissantis already has a 777 cargo hold full of baggage, it’s called Donald John Trump. It was in front of Trump that Pissantis humiliated his own family with a disgusting homage ad to Trump when he ran for Governor. As impossible as it sounds, DeSantis was even more cowardly craven, and spineless than Mike Pence. And now Trump is gleefully showing his base that he made DeSantis, and he can take him out.
Rattysnotty is a whole new breed of cat. Flop Gov has always been too big of a wimp to overtly show his racism. He lets his legislature create racist, sexist, anti LGBTQ bullsh*t, then signs off on it and praises the legislature for following his nudge-nudge orders.
You want Trump without the baggage? Rattysnotty is your man. Just like El Pendejo Presidente of 2016, he doesn’t hide a damn thing. In fact he carries his racism, sexism, and xenophobia proudly in front of him like a battle flag. And when he looks at and talks to you, you can almost see the sneering, condescending pity of him being rich and you not dripping off his smug face. He used the same facial expression and tone of voice while sneeringly paying homage to Glorious Bleater in the debate. And best of all, his hands are pure. He’s never run for anything, taken a donation from Trump, or asked Trump for anything. No. Baggage.
And Trump has absolutely no idea of what to do about him. On Glenn Beck’s show yesterday, Beck brought him up, and Trump floundered through an answer. Why bash Rattysnotty when he complimented him on the stage. But Trump can smell the threat, and already has to know that he needs to deal with this threat most riki-tik.
Which means coming out of debate retirement, and getting back onstage. Anybody who saw Rattysnotty on stage Wednesday saw Trump of 2016. Nothing was too outlandish or offensive to say, nobody he wouldn’t take on, making the occasional rookie mistake of leading with his chin, but grinning evilly the whole time with the thrill of the fight.
Trump staying off of that stage on Wednesday was a tactical blunder he may come to regret. By staying away, he let Trump 2.0 to the GOP base. And by the looks of the post debate polling, they liked it. If Trump doesn’t knock him out quickly, he’s going to have a fight on his hands that he doesn’t need with all of his legal problems. And Nikki Hayley is skulking around, waiting to sneak by on the inside. Don’t touch that dial.
Ye,s racism is prevalent, maybe even dominant with these people. They were really upset by having a black president with Obama. I’m fairly sure that they’re not going to accept an even darker skinned person with a ‘foreign’ name as their contender, specially those bound tightly to uber-racist Trump. India may have put a spacecraft on the moon, but having someone with Indian heritage as republican front-runner is less technologically possible at the moment.
I would love to be proved wrong in stating this, but I strongly suspect I won’t be.
Who cares? He’s a racist himself. Would you be happier if the enlightened MAGAs gave him the nomination?
No offense, Murf, but media pundits are treating the GOP presidential race as if it really matters who eventually wins. The truth is that Trumpism, in all of its ugly aspects, has thoroughly infested the GOP. If any of those candidates became president, it would be a disaster for our country.
DeSaster cannot run for a third term as Governor @$$hole without someone being governor for a term. Since that someone is likely less disliked than him, his political career is dead in the water. His little attack on Disney has cost flat minimum 10 large conventions because of what has been spelled out as “a hostile business climate.” In other words, it isn’t smart to use the state government to retaliate against the third largest employer and biggest taxpayer in your state. He is costing the state millions, if not billions.