https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/11/trumpdesantis_2024.html
Trump/DeSantis 2024
As election day, November 8, is turning into election week or month, the outcomes are being dissected through the lens of the 2024 presidential election.
Florida was a major success with Governor Ron DeSantis winning big, along with Senator Marco Rubio. DeSantis should be the role model for the other 25 or so Republican governors, as he gave a master class in handling COVID prudently, based on science rather than hype, and punched back hard against the woke leftist culture infecting the rest of the country.
Many Republicans left blue hellholes like New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois, turning Florida into a deeper shade of red, leaving the hellholes a deeper shade of blue, simply by virtue of migration. This partially explains Florida’s electoral results, but much credit goes to Governor DeSantis and his governorship.
As such, DeSantis has become the darling of the media, Trump-hating RINOs, and much of the Republican establishment.
Are they enamored over his ability to punch back against the Left? Or is their newfound affection due to DeSantis possibly displacing former President Donald Trump as the Republican nominee in 2024? For the anyone-but-Trump crowd, DeSantis is a gift from the heavens.
Should he win the nomination, the left will turn on him on a dime, as they did on Trump once he became the nominee in 2016. Trump quickly morphed from being a regular on Morning Joe to his new persona as a racist buffoon as soon as he became Hillary Clinton’s electoral opponent.
If both Trump and Desantis run for President in 2024, it would be hard fought and nasty, as was the 2016 GOP primary season. Trump is the master at branding his opponents and not in a flattering way.
The last Florida governor to learn this was “Low Energy Jeb.” Will the next one be Ron “DeSanctimonious”?
Primaries are a time of choosing as each candidate makes their case to their party’s electorate. Whoever emerges victorious, assuming the candidates don’t annihilate each other, will be primed for the main event.
Democrats and the media hope that Trump and DeSantis destroy each other, leading to a Pence/Pompeo or Haley/Noem ticket that loses genteelly in a McCain or Romney fashion, allowing the deep state and ruling class to return to some semblance of pre-Trump normalcy.
The author of the article, Dr. Brian Joondeph, offers another possibility. Suppose all the Trump vs DeSantis sparring is nothing but theater? What if the two Florida residents have discussed plans and strategy already?
Trump still has his strong MAGA base, and in a CPAC straw poll a few months ago, was the favored 2024 nominee over DeSantis by 69-24 percent. It’s still Trump’s party.
DeSantis is an exemplary governor but has no national governing experience, unlike Trump who has already spent four years as President.
DeSantis, not being independently wealthy, will be beholden to the donor class supporting his candidacy, possibly clipping his wings should he become President. Trump doesn’t have this conflict of interest.
Trump has his baggage, his brash personality and inability to turn the other cheek, features that both annoy and thrill his detractors and supporters respectively, as few Republicans have the ability to punch back against the leftist forces against them — Hollywood, academia, corporate media, Wall Street, big pharma, big sports, and the coastal latte-sipping elites.
The ruling class would like nothing better than for Trump and DeSantis to split the GOP vote, leaving the door wide open for another destructive Democrat administration. Watch the media do their best to set up this scenario.
The author’s theory is that Trump and DeSantis formed a secret alliance, allowing the Trump-hating RINOs to pour hundreds of millions into DeSantis’s potential campaign.
The two can feud publicly, sucking the air out of the political room for the next year, then join forces. Not only will they have a huge campaign war chest, but the NeverTrumpers who loved DeSantis one minute will have no idea what to do when they get their wish, except that their guy is running for the White House with another guy they loathe.
This would be an unbeatable ticket, assuming the election systems, particularly in swing states, get fixed. DeSantis would have four years as an understudy, and after Trump cleans up the numerous flaming bags of poop created by the Biden-Obama administration, DeSantis would be well positioned to continue making America great again for another four or eight years.
All Trump would have to do is claim New York as his primary residence to avoid the Constitution’s effective prohibition on the president and vice president coming from the same state.*
{Article II: “The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.”}
This would prevent Florida’s electors from voting for the president and vice president, a handicap that no rational person would burden the ticket with.
Predictions are a dime a dozen these days, but Trump and DeSantis are too smart to destroy each other. Trump helped DeSantis win the governorship and DeSantis knows Trump could dispatch him as he did to 16 talented and experienced primary opponents in 2016, few of whom still have a political future.
Don’t listen to the hype from Fox News and other Trump-hating media that Trump is finished. This gaslighted “feud” is designed to dispirit Republican voters and boost sagging media ratings. Maybe this is all part of “the plan.”
So how bad will it get?
Let’s look at a little history of past elections.
Jefferson vs. Adams, 1800
In case you’re wondering exactly how down-and-dirty these campaigns got, consider the fact that this is the only election in history where a vice president has run against the president he was currently serving under. You can imagine that things were a little tense in the White House in the months leading up to the election.
Jefferson hired a writer to pen insults rather than dirty his own hands (at least at first). One of his most creative lines said that Adams was a “hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”
Adams’ Federalists carried things even further, asking voters, “Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames… female chastity violated… children writhing on the pike? GREAT GOD OF COMPASSION AND JUSTICE, SHIELD MY COUNTRY FROM DESTRUCTION.” I bet the Federalists would be so very upset to know that Jefferson was immortalized in 1936 as one of America’s great presidents on Mount Rushmore.
1800 In the country’s first contested presidential election, supporters of Thomas Jefferson claimed incumbent John Adams wanted to marry off his son to the daughter of King George III, creating an American dynasty under British rule. Jefferson haters called the challenger a fraud, a coward, a thief, and “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” Jefferson won….
After such a nasty election, Congress passed the Twelfth Amendment, stating that the nominee to get the second-most number of votes would no longer be elected vice president.
Jackson vs. Adams, 1828
Apparently those Adams boys are scrappy fellows. When Andrew Jackson ran against incumbant John Quincy Adams in 1828, it was not pretty. Adams’ previous term had not been a very successful one, but he was prepared to sling a little mud anyway.
He and his handlers said Jackson had the personality of a dictator, was too uneducated to be president (they claimed he spelled Europe ‘Urope’), and hurled all sorts of horrible insults at his wife, Rachel. Rachel had been in an abusive marriage with a man who finally divorced her, but divorce was still quite the scandal at the time. The Federalists called her a “dirty black wench”, a “convicted adulteress” and said she was prone to “open and notorious lewdness”.
On their end, Jackson’s people said that Adams had sold his wife’s maid as a concubine to the czar of Russia.
Jackson won pretty handily – 642,553 votes to Adams’ 500,897.
Lincoln vs. Douglas, 1860
Yep, even Abraham Lincoln was dealt his share of crap. But he was pretty good at dealing it too. Although it’s normal – and expected – for candidates to stump across the country in any little small town that will have them, but in 1860 it was considered a little tacky. Stephen Douglas chose this tactic anyway, but claimed that he was really just taking a leisurely train ride from D.C. to New York to visit his mom. Lincoln and his supporters took note of the fact that it took him over a month to get there and even put out a “Lost Child” handbill that said he “Left Washington, D.C. some time in July, to go home to his mother… who is very anxious about him. Seen in Philadelphia, New York City, Hartford, Conn., and at a clambake in Rhode Island. Answers to the name Little Giant. Talks a great deal, very loud, always about himself.” ‘Little Giant’ was a potshot at Douglas’ height – he was only 5’4″. He was also said to be “about five feet nothing in height and about the same in diameter the other way.”
Douglas took aim at Lincoln, too, saying he was a “horrid-looking wretch, sooty and scoundrelly in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper and the nightman.” Another good one? “Lincoln is the leanest, lankest, most ungainly mass of legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a single frame.”
Cleveland vs. Blaine, 1884
Who knew Grover Cleveland was the Bill Clinton of his time? During his campaign, stories of his lecherousness were plentiful. One was verified, though – Cleveland, while still a bachelor, had fathered a child with a widow named Maria Halpin. He fully supported the child. So really, by today’s standards, it probably wouldn’t be that much of a scandal. No marriages ruined, no paternity tests, no child support issues. Nevertheless, the Republican party, who supported candidate James Blaine, took this and ran with it. They made up the chant, “Ma! Ma! Where’s my pa?” and used it to taunt Cleveland.
Blaine was no innocent, though. He was accused of shady dealings with the railroad, which was confirmed when a letter was found in which Blaine pretty much confirmed that he knew he was involved in corrupt business – he signed the letter, “My regards to Mrs. Fisher. Burn this letter!” Cleveland’s Democrats made up their own chant based on his writings – “Burn this letter! Burn this letter!”
Hoover vs Smith, 1928
Democrat Al Smith lost pretty badly to Republican Herbert Hoover, largely due to one reason: his religion. At the time of the election, the Holland Tunnel in New York was just being finished up. Republicans told everyone that the Catholic Smith had commissioned a secret tunnel 3,500 miles long, from the Holland Tunnel to the Vatican in Rome, and that the Pope would have say in all presidential matters should Smith be elected. It probably didn’t help matters that Babe Ruth was a staunch Smith supporter. You think it would work in his favor, but the Babe would show up at events wearing only his undershirt with a mug of beer in one hand. If people opposed his viewpoint, Ruth would simply say, “The hell with you,” and be done with them.
1. The very first one, 1788-1789
The first presidential election in our nation’s history was one-of-a-kind in that it was literally no contest. Organized political parties had yet to form, and George Washington ran unopposed. His victory is the only one in the nation’s history to feature 100 percent of the Electoral College vote.
The real question in 1788 was who would become vice president. At the time, this office was awarded to the runner-up in the electoral vote (each elector cast two votes to ensure there would be a runner-up.) Eleven candidates made a play for the vice-presidency, but John Adams came out on top.
2. It’s a tie, 1800
Electoral politics got serious in 1800. Forget the hand-holding peace of George Washington’s first run — political parties were in full swing by this time, and they battled over high-stakes issues (taxes, states’ rights and foreign policy alignments). Thomas Jefferson ran as the Democratic-Republican candidate and John Adams as the Federalist.
At the time, states got to pick their own election days, so voting ran from April to October (and you thought waiting for the West Coast polls to close was frustrating). Because of the complicated “pick two” voting structure in the Electoral College, the election ended up a tie between Jefferson and his vice-presidential pick, Aaron Burr. One South Carolina delegate was supposed to give one of his votes on another candidate, so as to arrange for Jefferson to win and Burr to come in second. The plan somehow went wrong, and both men ended up with 73 electoral votes.
That sent the tie-breaking vote to the House of Representatives, not all of whom were on board with a Jefferson presidency and Burr vice-presidency. Seven tense days of voting followed, but Jefferson finally pulled ahead of Burr. The drama triggered the passage of the 12th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which stipulates that the Electoral College pick the president and vice-president separately, doing away with the runner-up complications.
3. Things get nasty, 1828
Anything involving dueling war veteran Andrew Jackson was liable to get dirty, but the 1828 electoral battle between Jackson and John Quincy Adams took the cake for mud slinging. Jackson had lost out to Adams in 1824 after Speaker of the House Henry Clay cast a tie-breaking vote. When Adams chose Clay as his Secretary of State, Jackson was furious and accused the two of a “corrupt bargain.”
And that was before the 1828 election even got started, when Adams was accused of pimping out an American girl to a Russian Czar. Jackson’s wife, Rachel, was called a “convicted adulteress,” because she had, years earlier, married Jackson before finalizing her divorce to her previous husband. Rachel died after Jackson won the election, but before his inauguration; at her funeral, Jackson blamed his opponents’ bigamy accusations. “May God Almighty forgiver her murderers, as I know she forgave them,” Jackson said. “I never can.”
To round out a rough election, Jackson’s inauguration party (open to the public) turned into a mob scene, with thousands of well-wishers crowding into the White House.
“Ladies fainted, men were seen with bloody noses, and such a scene of confusion took place as is impossible to describe,” wrote Margaret Smith, a Washington socialite who attended the party.
4. Running against a corpse, 1872
In 1872, incumbent Ulysses S. Grant had an easy run for a second term — because his opponent died before the final votes were cast.
Grant had the election in the bag even before his opponent, Horace Greeley, died, however. The incumbent won 286 electoral votes compared with Greeley’s 66 after election day. But on Nov. 29, 1872, before the Electoral College votes were in, Greeley died and his electoral votes were split among other candidates. Greeley remains the only presidential candidate to die before the election was finalized.