Way too Early For This
The Presidential race almost seems like the Christmas holiday shopping season. It seems to come earlier and earlier each cycle around.
I thought Nickii Haley putting her hat in the ring right after Joe Biden took office was a little early and I guess it made sense back then because she needed time for everyone to start digging those nickels and dimes out of their couches. However, the meat and potatoes of the GOP contenders are on the clock this week.
Tim Scott announced yesterday that he was joining the race. Ron DeSantis is going to announce tonight with Elon Musk. Vivek Ramaswamy, Larry Elder and Asa Hutchinson have already declared. Oh, yeah, former President Donald Trump threw his weave in earlier this year.
Lot of players and the scorecard is pretty much filled. So, what does it all mean?
Simply put, it’s going to come down to Donald Trump against Gov. DeSantis in a mud slinging, vicious primary that will do more harm than good.
I have repeatedly said that I believe Trump is a net negative as far as this Presidential election is concerned.
He is disliked by every living Democrat (and a lot of the dead ones that voted as well). His own party is split down the middle and those fence sitters and independents pretty much can’t stand him. Why run then? You are going to destroy your own party and inevitably give the election to President Biden. The seats in the house will fall as well and we will be back to where we were two years ago.
He is running because his ego knows no bounds. He gains strength and power from the outpouring of hate he engenders and his eye is not on the greater good. It is on feeding his monstrous ego and destroying the very thing he should be fighting for.
There I said it.
Presidential elections are not about what’s best for the country, they are about what’s best for the party the candidate represent and his/her selected beneficiaries. Be they the defense industry, the religious right, the liberal ideologues. Whoever he/she is beholden to, that’s what they are running for.
That sucks. It is a fact, but it still sucks.
Trump runs for himself. He is the first President that has no agenda other than his own and in 2016, that is why he got elected. He didn’t owe anyone anything (unless you are the hundreds of contractors over the years that he has stiffed) and he went his own way. Succeeding in some very key spots and failing as well. He should have left it at that. Incumbents run on their successes and he had some great ones but the Pandemic derailed Donald Trump and then he just derailed himself.
DeSantis will announce tonight and with the help of Elon Musk (The new Kingmaker?) and hopefully there will be some substance to his announcement so we can actually have a better handle on DeSantis and why he should be the Republican nominee. Standing up to Disney does not qualify as a resume builder for a Presidential run.
DeSantis’s supporters say what a great job he is doing in Florida and that when things go wrong, the state is there to help fix it. Florida’s government works. Ok. I can see why Floridians love the guy. The states population is growing by leaps and bounds. The state is attracting people from all over the country and it’s a business friendly environment. Taxes are low. Crime is relatively low. So on and so forth.
Let’s put some of that in perspective.
People are moving to Florida from states run by Democrats. Democratic leadership around this country is downright awful. The State of New York, my home, used to be a great place to live. The Democrats took over and the state has gone directly into the sewer. We had this huge infrastructure bill passed into existence and that money was supposed to go into repairing our infrastructure, yet, you drive around Long Island and New York City and the roadways are crumbling as you drive. Where did the 185 billion dollars that was earmarked for road repair go. The Democrats in Albany have completely ruined any chance of rebuilding New York. That is why people are leaving New York and moving to Florida. High taxes, no improvements and the quality of life has gone downhill, not because Ron DeSantis is Governor. Micky or Minnie Mouse could be Governor of Florida and New Yorkers would be moving there. Same thing in Illinois and believe it or not people from California are moving to Florida. Not because of Ron DeSantis but because Florida is run by a government that doesn’t spend billions on stupid pet projects of some progressives.
I am just saying hold the phone on DeSantis until you actually here what his platform is about.
While I don’t think that any of the other candidates have much of a shot I do like Vivek Ramaswamy. He speaks common sense. Zero bluster and he understands what being a Republican is. Most importantly, he loves this country. I am not sure America is ready for a man or woman of Indian descent to run the country but I do think his time will come. You heard it here first.