If I were advising DeSantis, Haley, or anyone else challenging Trump, I would tell them to bait Trump mercilessly about how he lost as an incumbent to a weak opponent.

You lose the hard core election deniers with that strategy, but that group is going Trump no matter what. And I see a lot of advantages to inducing Trump to triple down on his wildest election theories.

I actually respected Desantis till he signed into law this crazy abortion law. Florida had a perfectly good abortion rule in line with many countries in the world. Sadly I think the GOP can kiss 2024 goodbye on the abortion issue .

This is what it looks like when the dog catches the car. I've said for a long time that overruling Roe, and opening the door to laws like the one in Florida, would be bad politics for Republicans.

I follow Matt Yglesias on twitter and this is a point that he has been making for a long time, in that most moderate Republicans that support DeSantis only do so because they don't know his actual policy positions very well, only his culture war rhetoric. Matt says DeSantis's actual policy positions are extremely right wing (much more right wing that Trump) and include abolishing abortion as much as possible, and serious cus to social welfare and healthcare programs.

It is entirely possible that DeSantis's policies would be more right wing by traditional metrics than Trump's policies.

But I don't think moderate Republicans are more attracted to DeSantis than Trump because of misperceptions about their respective policy preferences. "Moderate" Republicans can get on board with some pretty extreme policies. I think that they are just tired of Trump's drama, tired of Trump's egocentrism, and tired of Trump ****ing up elections.

Maybe I am overestimating how important the abortion issue is, but I find I hard to believe that any politician that supports dropping the cutoff to 6 weeks (and has passed laws to that effect) could win a general Presidential election, even against a Democrat candidate as weak as Biden.

Funny thing is if Biden wins again he will still be called weak, despite being 2-0. Hopefully the losing side never bothers to evaluate their approach and on that note they should get back to the issues that matter, like Hunter Biden.

I think Biden sucks but if you can't see the results in the primaries and think abortion isn't a big issue well than your missing something just as the GOP is.
Desantis should have left his states abortion law the way it is and if challenged say we found a balance which most of America and the world supports . In our state the democrats are not doing abortions a day before birth ( yes it's rare and there are reasons)
That would have appealed to the undecided

It is probably unhelpful in a general election to have that on your record, but I wouldn't put it as starkly as you did.

Unless there is a third party candidate in the mix, my rebuttable presumption in general elections is that each major party candidate has a minimum of a 15% chance to win, no matter how terrible the candidate is.

Mondale is probably the last candidate to have lower true odds than 15% coming out of the convention.

Republican voters aren’t even slightly interested in policy positions, they want the guy who says “woke” the most and pushes whatever moral panic Tucker Carlson is throwing out there.

You don't like Tucker Carlson? He is a true American

Insofar as he has little regard for the actual facts? I agree.

Which facts? Tucker is the man! I don't watch his Fox show but as a person/American our values are very much aligned.

I have no doubt that your values align with the words that come out of Tucker's mouth.

Only the current Tucker. That dude has an interesting history and go back in time he actually hated fake journalists (like he has become). He eventually saw the $$$ of transitioning so he did that and I doubt he has any regrets, but dudes that worship him today would hate the human that Tucker was a while ago before he made that transition to monetize his passive followers.

I like that he prioritizes his family heavily, hunts, fishes, is a Christian, respects America, and is funny. Do I agree with everything he says? No. But he is certainly likable.

I found this podcast to be particularly entertaining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAaFEOCHE4I

He transitioned into that personality to try to monetize people like you. Hard to argue that was a bad choice by him, and the best part is that it will not matter if he even came out and said he did that just for the money/fame since he has people like you locked in by telling you what you want to hear from a "likeable" figure. You would probably snap vote for the guy to be President. Golly Jeepers!

All the best.

I would prefer Erik Prince but I'll take Tucker in a heartbeat. Do you think he prioritizes his family, hunts, and fishes as a part of his "Media Personality"? I don't think that's the case. My ranch manager had dinner with him in Florida before he worked for me and helped him find his quail lease. I'm going to go off his personal experience that he is legitimate.

You can find interviews with him from a while ago where he talks (quite negatively) about the type of person he eventually became. Is he an aw shucks kind of guy that knows how to work the room? Of course he is, and he is good at it. Is it 100% fake? Nah, but it is hardly 100% real either. The guy is a performer and he knows it because he openly hated way back the people who were doing (not as well) the stuff he is doing today.

He also knows the impact of always being in character. People like you believe him more if he is always like his performance art. Does that mean it is all a fake? No, but again it is hardly all real as well. That is just you and other passive followers rationalizing following him. He is a performer and you buy 100% into his performance. Good for him getting to that point to monetize his followers. Trump (as he always is) was more blatant about it when he talked about how much he loves uneducated people.

All the best.

I don't really watch his performances. As stated earlier I am not a Fox News guy. I read WSJ, Bloomberg, RBC, Multi-Housing News, and a few others from time to time. But we can agree to disagree here.

All the best

You were the one who talked about how genuine he was and such and that he was "the man!". Now you are saying you do not watch him. Math checks out? Yeah, guess we will agree to disagree here for now.

All the best.

Yeah, I don't watch Fox news or CNN for that matter. My take on him comes from some of the Youtube videos I have seen of him and the personal experience shared with me by my ranch manager. I don't see why this is difficult for you to understand.

I understand perfectly that he is "the man!" when that suits your narrative but then he is someone you do not watch and only go by supposed second hand ranch manager stories when that suits your adjusted narrative. I just like that you can transition between them without awareness of doing so, hence I point it out.

All the best.

This makes sense if you don't think about it.

All the best!!!

To be fair, I never inferred you gave much thought to your posts as you flip flop between positions. Hope that makes sense. Don't think too much about it. Wolverines!!!!

All the best.