2024 GOP Presidential Race (2 Viewers)

[SteveSBrickNJ]

Many of Trump's endorsed candidates did not do well on Nov. 8th.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis DID do well.
He won convincingly.
Yet in this OP's opinion, Donald Trump is an egomaniac who is seemingly incapable of putting "Party over Self"
Trump has ZERO chance of being elected our next president.
In my opinion, if Trump would just shut up and go away (fat chance of that)...but "if" Trump did that, Gov. Ron DeSantis would have a CHANCE to be a formidable candidate for President in 2024.
Here is an interesting article on this topic...

Donald Trump warns Ron DeSantis against 2024 presidential bid as Republican rising star wins big

Donald Trump has warned Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis against running for president in 2024, saying doing so would harm the Republican Party.

www.scotsman.com

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What do any of you think re. Trump vs DeSantis?

 

[SteveSBrickNJ]

Not true, Trump was the oldest to seek his 2nd term @70yrs old. I'm not exited about Biden's age, but considering the alternative


For the time being, he's a federally indicted alleged criminal.



Oh, I fify!

He has 6 pending cases!

• Carrol
• Docs
• NY Tax
• NY Stormy
• GA Voter Fraud
• Jan 6

Your quote of me followed by "Not True" is disappointing. I said "America has never had such an old President running again for another term".
Because you are being nit picky, I'll rephrase it.
(I just asked Google: "How old will Biden be in Nov. of 2024?" The response displayed was: "About 82"
So Mr. Nit Picky...
America has never had a Presidential candidate who is "about 82" years old on the ballot before.
Trump at 70 and Biden at 82.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

Your quote of me followed by "Not True" is disappointing. I said "America has never had such an old President running again for another term".
Because you are being nit picky, I'll rephrase it.
(I just asked Google: "How old will Biden be in Nov. of 2024?" The response displayed was: "About 82"
So Mr. Nit Picky...
America has never had a Presidential candidate who is "about 82" year old on the ballot before.
Trump at 70 and Biden at 82.

I initially went in to the reply with the thought process of "the same was true of the last election" but my ADD kicked in again. Sorry dude!

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

There are reasons to believe that MANY Americans are going to vote 3rd Party if the only two options are Biden and Trump.
Nov 2024 may be a record breaking election in that regard.
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Americans dislike both Biden and Trump

But the “meh” vote normally favors the incumbent. The trick, one pundit says, is to tout Biden’s legislative accomplishments and remind people of all the terribly unpopular things Republicans have in mind.

chicago.suntimes.com

I highly doubt a third-party candidate will garner the votes that Ross Perot did, for example, but if it's Biden/Trump/Third-party-candidate it could put Trump in the White House. And....that's the problem

 

[Booker]

My Libertarian brother was real excited about Gary Johnson in 2016 and thought he had a real shot, and he only got about 3% of the vote.

 

[efil4]

I highly doubt a third-party candidate will garner the votes that Ross Perot did, for example, but if it's Biden/Trump/Third-party-candidate it could put Trump in the White House. And....that's the problem

In fairness to Gen Z, from what i see with my oldest ( turns 20 this Sept ) they are totally involved in whats going on. Totally understand Trump is a blowhard and dont particularly care for 3rd party- because they understand exactly what you posited above.

 

[Booker]

In fairness to Gen Z, from what i see with my oldest ( turns 20 this Sept ) they are totally involved in whats going on. Totally understand Trump is a blowhard and dont particularly care for 3rd party- because they understand exactly what you posited above.

My oldest turns 20 in November - he can’t wait to vote in the next presidential election.

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

My Libertarian brother was real excited about Gary Johnson in 2016 and thought he had a real shot, and he only got about 3% of the vote.

As was i. But until they let a 3rd party candidate in the debates, 3rd party will never have a shot. GJ was on the ballot in all 50 states, the only other candidate in 2016 to be on the ballot in all 50 states. The D's and R's will continue to make rules to block them from the debates because if there is an actual grown up in the debate, it will make them look bad.

 

[efil4]

My oldest turns 20 in November - he can’t wait to vote in the next presidential election.

mine first voted in midterms and stood 4 hrs in line to do so.

I remember when i was 18...the only line i stood it was to get in the bar/club lol. ( and if it took more than 20 min- on to the next one lol )

And it wasnt just her- her whole friend group voted, talked about etc.

Its kinda refreshing to see our kids take a more active role in their future. For me, in the 80s, the future was tomorrow lol.

 

[Optimus Prime]

from the Atlantic
==============
Before his stump speeches in his reelection campaign last year, Ron DeSantis liked to play a video montage that showed him being gratuitously rude to reporters at press conferences. It was petty and graceless—and warmly received by the Florida governor’s base. At a DeSantis rally in Melbourne, Florida, last fall, I watched the video from an elevated press pen alongside a gaggle of local reporters. The disconnect between the unflagging politeness that DeSantis’s young volunteers showed the press corps and the ostentatious douchebaggery of the candidate was stark.

Last night, though, Dunking Ron was replaced, briefly, by Conciliatory Ron. His decision to grant CNN’s Jake Tapper a sit-down interview in South Carolina was a reflection of how far behind Donald Trump he is trailing in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. But more than that, the interview was a rejection of one of the Florida governor’s most cherished principles: Mainstream journalists are the enemy and should be treated with undisguised contempt.

DeSantis’s problem is that his basic theory of the campaign is turning out to be wrong. He promised to run as Trump plus an attention span, and instead he is running as Trump minus jokes. The result is ugly enough for the Republican base to recoil. Now, belatedly, the Florida governor appears to have decided that the only way to save his campaign is to execute a pivot from peevishness.

DeSantis played that montage in Melbourne, I think, because he had seen Trump railing against “fake news media” and leading his supporters in Two Minutes Hate sessions at his rallies, and he had drawn an entirely wrong conclusion. Despite being a smart guy, DeSantis apparently had not grasped that Trump’s routine was all for show. An act. All his life, Trump has phoned reporters to gossip. After leaving office, he welcomed multiple authors to Mar-a-Lago to spill his guts for their various books about his White House. Trump doesn’t hate the press; if anything, he likes it too much. This is a man who once pointed at the reporter Maggie Haberman and said, “I love being with her; she’s like my psychiatrist.”

DeSantis, by contrast, seems to genuinely hate the media, with their intrusion and attention and awkward questions. He has an unfortunate habit of waggling his head like a doll on a dashboard when receiving an inquiry he considers beneath him; he did it on a visit to Japan just before he formally announced his presidential campaign, when someone had the temerity to ask whether he was running, which he obviously was. The move creates an odd effect where his eyeballs seem to stay in the same place while the rest of his head oscillates around them. It’s a startling tell that he’s irritated or uncomfortable. Please let me play poker against this man.

Facing Tapper, though, DeSantis kept the wobble in check, offering instead a performance of earnest dullness. He stonewalled over whether the 2020 presidential election was stolen and whether the ex-president should face criminal charges, claiming that he preferred to “focus on looking forward.” He admitted that many people who attack “wokeness” can’t even define the term.

And he dodged a question on whether he would extend Florida’s new six-week abortion restrictions countrywide by asserting broadly that he would be a “pro-life president” and claiming that, in any case, a Democratic Congress would try to “nationalize abortion up until the moment of birth” and even permit “post-birth abortions.” (Tapper did not challenge this at the time but later clarified the meaning with the campaign, which said it was referring to medical care being denied to any fetus that survived the abortion procedure.)

The governor’s only gaffe was claiming that “the proof was in the pudding” when it came to suggestions that his campaign was failing, which brought to mind an unkind story, denied by the candidate, that he once ate a chocolate dessert straight from the tub with three fingers.

Let’s not go as far as the CNN pundit Bakari Sellers, who claimed that in the interview, DeSantis “started to give the vibe that he could be president of the United States.” But this was a far more emollient version of the Florida governor than any journalist an inch to the left of Fox News has ever encountered before. That’s because he now needs establishment media to treat him as a credible threat to Trump: The polls are bad, the vibes are shifting, and his campaign laid off several staff members last week.

Added to that, although DeSantis raised an impressive $20 million from mid-May to June, his reliance on high rollers has become a problem. “More than two-thirds of DeSantis’ money—nearly $14 million—came from donors who gave the legal maximum and cannot donate again,” an analysis by NBC found. Those rich backers are also more likely to act strategically than grassroots true believers; they don’t have any interest in backing a loser because they admire his principles. In a similar vein, the formerly supportive Murdoch empire’s ardor for the Florida governor has noticeably cooled in recent weeks...........

MSN

www.msn.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

The New York Times published an article Monday that's bone-chilling for anyone who cherishes our freedom, democracy and constitutional governance. The story recounted, with full cooperation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, his plans to eliminate executive branch constraints on his power if he is elected president in 2024.

The obstacles to be eliminated include an independent Justice Department, independent leadership in administrative agencies and an independent civil service. Richard Neustadt, one of the country’s best known students of the American presidency, has said that in a constitutional democracy the chief executive “does not obtain results by giving orders – or not. ... He does not get action without argument. Presidential power is the power to persuade.”

Trump’s plan would substitute loyalty to him for loyalty to the Constitution. This vision is simultaneously frightening and unsurprising. In 2019, he said, “I have to the right to do whatever I want as president.” And in December, Trump called for the “termination of ... the Constitution.”

In effect, he attempted to do exactly that in the run-up to the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by pressuring state officials to reverse President Joe Biden’s electoral victory, attempting to weaponize the Justice Department and bullying Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election.

Trump now may face federal charges for his role in fomenting the riot.

And while he was president, in addition to appointing subservient heads of executive departments, he took steps to increase his control over the regulatory authority of administrative agencies. To cite one example, in 2019, Trump forced climate change researchers in the Department of Agriculture to move from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City, Missouri, producing a huge exodus from federal employment.

In 2020, he attempted to undermine the independence of the civil service by issuing an executive order adopting “Schedule F.” It purported to vastly augment a president’s power to hire and fire federal officials by expanding the number of “political appointees” throughout government employment who were outside civil service protections.

The Times story outlined his 2025 road map to implement this command-and-control model of executive authority and centralization of power if he’s returned to the Oval Office. In effect, the article described how his team would replace our constitutional republic with an authoritarian state.

Such a state seeks to eliminate the independence of civil servants. Saying good things about bureaucracy may be unpopular, but federal employees' competence, expert judgment and commitment to governance by law is essential to democratic government.

One definition of an authoritarian state is that it is characterized by the consolidation of power in a single leader, "a controlling regime that justifies itself as a 'necessary evil.'" That kind of control necessarily features "strict government-imposed constraints on social freedoms such as suppression of political opponents and anti-regime activity."

Those characteristics describe the contours of the 2025 blueprint that the Trump campaign wanted the public to see via the Times' report. As the story notes, they are setting the stage, if Trump is elected, “to claim a mandate” for the goal of centralizing power in him.

The Times quoted John McEntee, Trump’s 2020 White House director of personnel, defending the rejection of checks and balances on a president: “Our current executive branch was conceived of by liberals for the purpose of promulgating liberal policies. ... What’s necessary is a complete system overhaul.”...............

MSN

 

[Booker]

mine first voted in midterms and stood 4 hrs in line to do so.

I remember when i was 18...the only line i stood it was to get in the bar/club lol. ( and if it took more than 20 min- on to the next one lol )

And it wasnt just her- her whole friend group voted, talked about etc.

Its kinda refreshing to see our kids take a more active role in their future. For me, in the 80s, the future was tomorrow lol.

Mine voted in the midterms too, but didn't have to waste time standing in line. Colorado does vote by mail, so he filled out his ballot at the kitchen table, where he was able to ask questions and search for more information on the ballot items he was unfamiliar with.

 

[Optimus Prime]

weird analogy
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An advisor to an unknown GOP hopeful is so annoyed by conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy that they compared the surging foe to noisy "fajitas."

"Vivek is like the fajitas that go by you at the restaurant," one advisor on a rival campaign told Semafor. "They make noise, look exciting, and come on the fun plate. But if you order it, it's too much, too annoying to assemble, and you wish you just ordered tacos."

Besides being wrong about head-turning fajitas, the snark underlines how Ramaswamy's rise is starting to grate on some of his fellow primary foes. A political neophyte, Ramaswamy is ahead of former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in national polling, per FiveThirtyEight's weighted average. By all accounts, he is on track to easily qualify for the first Republican presidential primary debate next month in Milwaukee............

MSN

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Seriously, fork Ron DeSantis and Florida. Secede already and take Texas with you.

Florida Board of Education approves new Black history standards that critics call 'a big step backward' | CNN

The Florida Board of Education approved a new set of standards for how Black history should be taught in the state’s public schools, sparking criticism from education and civil rights advocates who said students should be allowed to learn the “full truth” of American history.

www.cnn.com

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

Mine voted in the midterms too, but didn't have to waste time standing in line. Colorado does vote by mail, so he filled out his ballot at the kitchen table, where he was able to ask questions and search for more information on the ballot items he was unfamiliar with.

Oh, so he was one of those people who likes to cheat??? /sarcasm...

Mine voted the last small election we had, was like some admendments and like council members or maybe dog catcher, i don't remember (you think i would since i worked the polls that day). But even in the last 2 presidential elections, we naver had more than 10 people in line.

 

[efil4]

Mine voted in the midterms too, but didn't have to waste time standing in line. Colorado does vote by mail, so he filled out his ballot at the kitchen table, where he was able to ask questions and search for more information on the ballot items he was unfamiliar with.

as an aside- we come 3x year to Colo- coming up 29th. Both my girls love Denver/Boulder area- my sis/hubby there ( 20 years ) and now since 2021 my best friend of 40 years- he and wife now in Denver - N Clarkson/17th. They love it...absolutely love it.

so chances are growing annually that we will end up there at some point.

 

[Booker]

as an aside- we come 3x year to Colo- coming up 29th. Both my girls love Denver/Boulder area- my sis/hubby there ( 20 years ) and now since 2021 my best friend of 40 years- he and wife now in Denver - N Clarkson/17th. They love it...absolutely love it.

so chances are growing annually that we will end up there at some point.

I love living in Colorado -- in about a week and a half it'll 26 years since my wife and I moved here. Going from Baton Rouge to Denver was life changing in so many ways.

 

[Optimus Prime]

A new Monmouth University poll suggests that former president Donald Trump would be easily dispatched by President Joe Biden in a 2024 rematch of the 2020 presidential election, even if Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) were to mount a third party bid that most analysts believe would hamper the Biden campaign.

In the national survey of 910 voters, 47% of voters said they would definitely or probably support Biden, while just 40% said they would back Trump.

Remarkably, a potential unity ticket comprised of Manchin and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman (R) would barely eat into Biden’s lead, as he would still boast a 40%-34% advantage over Trump.

63% of voters professed to have an unfavorable view of Trump and half of voters said they would “definitely” not support Trump in 2024...........

MSN

Difficult Path For 2024 Third-Party Bid | Monmouth University Polling Institute

Named ticket gets less support than generic one

www.monmouth.edu

 

[GrandAdmiral]

There is zero chance of any 3rd party candidate ever winning a presidential election for these three reasons:

1. The Electoral College
2. The Electoral College
3. The Electoral College

Ross Perot? Nope. Did nothing but made it easier for Clinton to get elected.
Joe Manchin? Yeah right. He'll poll less than Perot.
Cornell West? Hahahahahaha (and I say that as a black Democrat)...

The only thing that any 3rd party candidate could ever possibly do in this current political setup (much less the political environment) is play spoiler to the party they feel scorned by.