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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 15, 2024

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I'm not surprised. I thought all along this was the wrong time for DeSantis to go, and he should have waited for 2028 (he's young in political terms, being 45 now, so he'd be under 50 then).

But a lot of people thought this was the right time, he had the momentum, it was now or never.

Well, he ran, he shot his bolt, and there's not going to be a second chance for another run based on how he performed (or didn't) this time. He's the new Mitt Romney. Even worse, because at least Romney had active Democratic opposition running him down, but Ron did it all to himself. I'm looking at the list of remaining candidates, and I think the Democrat slate is pretty much something we can ignore - it'll be Biden again.

And who's left? Some Guy, Haley, and Trump. It's going to be Trump versus Biden, Round II. I don't think Nikki can do it, but if she manages a more respectable showing in the end, she has more of a chance to try again in 2028.

Why wouldn't there be a second chance? Everyone I know who preferred Trump liked DeSantis too, just thought it wasn't his time to be President yet.

I think he showed weakness on the national stage, and now he's dropped out. As others have said, if he waited until 2028 then he'd be out of office as governor and what is he going to do in the meantime? But now if he wants a second chance, he has to wait until 2028 anyway, he's still going to be out of office, and what will he do in the meantime, on top of which he will now have the albatross around his neck of "messed up his chance the first time against Trump of all people".

Whatever he does between now and 2028 will be perceived as second-best, scrabbling around for a Plan B, whereas I do think if he had waited he could have approached it with a better plan drawn up, be that "seek election to the Senate" or whatever and built up his reputation nationally.

Haley is dead politically. Too much of the base myself included don’t like her. There are plenty of Trump supporters who are fans of Desantis but I don’t know any that like Haley.

Desantis will have a chance in 2028 depending on what Trump Inc. decided to do. For now I would assume it’s Donald Trump Jr in 2028 but Desantis will have a fighting chance.

I don’t see Desantis taking a role in the Trump admin. And I think for the gop it’s better to keep him out of the admin in case Donald blows up some day. Which likely means you get Senator Desantis at some point.

And him dropping out now shows that he isn’t reflexively anti trump. Sure he thought he would make a better president but when it was obvious it wasn’t happening he backed Trump and didn’t prolong a primary fight for vanity reasons or to take advantage of Trump’s legal problems.

Agreed Haley is a walking dead woman unless someone Trump gets kicked off the ballot.

I'm not surprised. I thought all along this was the wrong time for DeSantis to go, and he should have waited for 2028 (he's young in political terms, being 45 now, so he'd be under 50 then).

The problem is he's term limited out in Florida, which means he'd have a dead time between his governorship and his run for the Presidency. This would likely work to his disadvantage, so it made sense for him to take a run at it now.

He can always run for congress in a safe seat and become house speaker.

It's generally considered a step down to go from a governorship to the House. And there's no guarantee he'd become speaker; I think it would be rather unlikely.

You have two relatively popular senators in Florida.

He could also go into the private sector and try to make a bunch of money.

Rick Scott isn't popular, he's won each of his elections by a hair and is hated within the GOP Senate caucus.

I mean republicans can’t seem to keep a speaker for longer than 6 months, I’m sure he’ll get a turn.