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The GOP has a deep bench precisely because the quality of candidates is so poor that random businessmen, grifters and various elected congressmen, governors and so on always think it’s their year.
The Dems have a mostly shitty slate (Buttigieg isn’t winning a presidential) but they can almost always dig up someone capable of winning. Once it was Obama, in a few years it’ll be Gavin Newsom. And Newsom isn’t smart, but he’s very handsome and looks like the President from a Hollywood movie, so he’ll win. Do the GOP have one hot man capable of winning a presidential election?
Thinking about this the argument doesn’t make sense.
The GOP had a deep bench because they suck? That sounds like your argument. So random high achieving people think they can win in the GOP. The Democrats have bad candidates because no one proper thinks they can win office with them so the good/smart people don’t run and we get Fettermans?
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The left doesn’t even have a bench at all. We can play the game where you criticize every gop candidates flaws but the Dems bench is Newsome? Who got recalled as governor? Kamela Harris who polls awful.
I do care about credentials for politicians. Desantis as much as people will hate on him is very solidly credentialed. He went to the right schools. I kind of do believe POTUS should have went to an Ivy. The Dems despite dominating those institutions can’t seem to find Ivy candidates.
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Desantis. Haley. Dems nominated Biden because they have no one. GOP nominates Trump because there’s a big bunch who really like him
There's no cross-party appeal, though, the way there was in 2016. Trump has a base who loves him and had the incumbent advantage in 2020, but still lost to a milquetoast whose strongest asset was how uninspiring he was. The whole MAGA brand is fucked, and their incessant culture warring and inability to focus on issues that actually matter have alienated them from a broad swath of the American electorate that's necessary for them to maintain power.
Look at the PA Senate race. I'm a Democrat but I voted for Toomey and wouldn't have been averse to voting for a Toomey-like Republican, especially since Fetterman was such a lousy candidate for reasons totally unrelated to his health. But first they back Sean Parnell, a guy so slimy he was forced to drop out before the primary. Then they go to two carpetbaggers and nominate one whose only selling points are already being a celebrity and having a Trump endorsement. Here and in so many other places, they seem intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory because they insist on running campaigns based on MAGA nonsense. Deep bench indeed.
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Desantis does not look good. Here is him vs Newsom
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