DeSantis: The man, the myth, the candidate?

After much anticipation and credible hints, Gov. Ron De Santis of Florida announced his candidacy for the 2024 US presidential election last week, and despite some technical difficulties with the announcement on Twitter, hosted by supporter and ally owner Elon Musk, for some it seemed, but to his many supporters it was the herald of a new day,

To those who are opposed to him, often vehemently, it seemed akin to the devil appearing on social media. Somewhere between the unbridled praise and the hatred, there exists a middle ground, and to that there seems to be doubts if he would win the Republican nomination in a party that seems to be locked down by former President Donald Trump; and, who despite legal action for financial misdeeds, and a sexual assault conviction, he has legions of supporters.

This is the question that hangs in the balance: will the former president be able to maintain his lock on the party, or will it push him aside? In the absence of a crystal ball, we have the polls which show him with a resounding lead.

Then again, there are the “never Trumpers'' in a distant third, and unafraid to say they do not want him on the ticket, but as we all know as political pundits, this is a numbers game, and when the numbers are not there, the nomination is absent, or even once accepted, if so, on the ticket can voters keep a candidate there? We saw the fall with Hillary Clinton in 2016, on election night as the numbers fell, and fell downward.

We noted earlier that for many months DeSantis was at the top of the game of political expediency, taking every issue dear to his base to the 10th power. Anti Gay legislation, check; Anti Trans rights, check; anti drag shows, check; no library storytime at the public library gone; book banning, check, and the list grows on till the very public and nasty fight with Disney over its support of gay rights.

Then the standard issue rightist policy, guns allowed with no checks and regulation, and all seemed well, until his collaborating with Texas governor, Gregg Abbot, to ship migrants to the liberal stronghold and vacation of wealthy Democrats and liberals, Martha's Vineyard, but that barely seemed to make a dent, despite all of the moral censures and the dupe perpetuated by rogue agents to lure these vulnerable people to fate.

That seemed to have no effect.

The Hill reported last week of a recent poll from the University of California Berkeley's Institute of Government studies that said, “44 percent of the Golden States likely GOP primary voters said they supported Trump, while 26 percent said they supported De Santis, an 18 point lead for the former president.”

This was contrasted with three months prior when the former president “trailed De Santis by 8 points with 37 percent supporting De Santis.”

Of course, there are other GOP candidates, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who was also the UN Ambassador from the US, under Trump; former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie who seems untainted by Bridgegate; and Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, expected to soon join the bandwagon this week, but with single digit polling, many are wondering what his chance of getting the nomination away from Trump, his former boss seem slim to none.

This may seem crowded to the uninitiated, but is actually quite normal in modern day presidential elections till they drop out, or get dropped, by events like the Iowa caucus, that defeated Clinton, and raised the profile of Barack Obama.

California, as The Hill noted, in recent reportage, has a plethora of “never Trumpers”, but noted that “his presence looks large with Republican voters feeling he is being treated unfairly in the courts and public opinion.”

Identifying who would support DeSantis was partly the task of the latest poll showing that they are largely men without college degrees, aged 50 to 64 years old, but there is some pushback by many who say that DeSantis is not charismatic, if that is a factor in the minds of voters.

Trump, on the other hands, whether admired or derided does have a strong charisma, or a brand, that is wholly his own as he gives a litany of those he ridicules, not just Democrats, not just liberals, but those he claims are not really Republican, ironic since he once was far more liberal on domestic issues, as he developed his real estate empire in New York City.

This has proved so strong that “66 percent discredited the results of the verdict,” in the trial of E. Jean Carroll in her sexuaL abuse case, and thought that it was motivated by political revenge.

Earlier polls even “showed that nearly half (45 percent) of GOP voters believed that Trump is ‘definitely’ the better Republican candidate to beat President Joe Biden next year.”

In an interview with Newsweek Patrick Murray, of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said, "DeSantis lost ground before he even got out of the starting gate.”