RMF5630 said:
whiterock said:
RMF5630 said:
muddybrazos said:
RMF5630 said:
Oldbear83 said:
RMF5630 said:
Oldbear83 said:
As long as you focus on Trump, you are missing the point. What is needed is winning over his base.
DeSantis is being very smart on that point. Governor DeSantis is simply ignoring Trump, which is the best way to handle him. And DeSantis' policies are exactly the common-sense measures MAGA Republicans will buy into.
Maybe 2-3 million of Trump's base are obsessed with the man, the rest support him because only Trump seems to be on message. DeSantis and anyone like him can win them over.
I agree with you on this. No argument. DeSantis won over the Hispanics (Cuban & Caribbean) by producing and following up on what he said. Cubans, Haitians, Dominicans, Puerto Rican cultures are all family oriented, hard working. I know that the temp workers Haitians are in demand, or were when I was working in South Florida.
Now, I do not know enough about the Mexican and Central American Hispanic cultures to say if he would attract them.
The key to Trump is to understand that Trump did not create the GOP base which love his policies, he simply was able to recognize what the base wanted, and promised to act on it. For the most part, Trump delivered on that promise, which is what created his current support.
Trump is a bit like Fetterman. What I mean is, Fetterman had a sloppy look with his hoodie and casual way of speaking, but a report I read indicated PA voters identified with him more than they did Oz's expensive suit and perfect hair. Trump looks stupid in that red MAGA hat but it makes him look like a regular guy, especially compared to the career politicos.
Trump was smart enough to know he would never look or sound like Ronald Reagan, so he crafted his own campaign persona. What's needed now is someone smart enough to run with Trump's policies but sell it under their own brand. And ideally we need several good choices, not one person we depend on as a Messiah.
Once again dead on.
We have several this cycle - DeSantis, Halley, Pompeo, and Cotton (if he runs) all have similar policies to Trump WITHOUT the baggage.
Hogan to me is intriguing, he is conservative but was able to navigate a Democrat State in Maryland/DC area. Don't think he has persona to challenge, but he was able to get things done in a Dem stronghold.
I think it will be a DeSantis/Halley ticket which will be tough to beat.
I will vote for Desantis but not if his running mate is Halley, Pompeo or any of these other establishment hacks. The maga voters DO NOT want to go backwards to old style neocon GOP people and Neocon Nikki and CIA asset Pompeo are def not it. Now Kari Lake, yes. I'd even be ok with Tim Scott but not that big of a fan of him. Ideally give me Trump & Rand Paul or Desantis and Rand Paul or THomas Massey and you got something.
You would not be happy with DeSantis if you want Kari Lake, Trump or Rand Paul! DeSantis is very much an establishment guy that does what it takes to keep the economy and growth going. He is not going to do the Trump or Lake crap...
if you want him to win the primary, you need to avoid messaging like that part in bold. He's gotta be the opposite of that or he will not defeat Trump.
That is where you seem wrong. There is a bigger part of the US that wants the President to be presidential and be able to work with the establishment. Only the fringe wants to blow things up. You do not move the nation forward blowing things up and being counterculture. Look at who the big winners were yesterday, republican governors that are adults.
Now you're attacking over half of the people who vote in the GOP primary as crazy fringe-ists.
I didn't learn politics in wards & precincts, or the halls full of elected officials. I learned it overseas, where it really is Game of Thrones, every day....you literally win or you die. And in that world, there is one rule that must be obeyed above all others = never, ever, EVER attack your base. If you win, you have a smaller base; and if you lose....well, you lose. Politics is addition, remember. So every time you think "we have to win independents..." you have to remind yourself to
also say "we have to win our base...." One cannot make it an either/or, which is the vanity of so many moderates who think they are above garden variety pandering. Anyone who thinks they're too good to pander to their base has no business being in politics. Politics by subtraction never works out very well.
There is only one Republican in sight who has a chance to defeat Trump, and that is primarily because he sprang from the MAGA base, with the same kind of slashing, in-your-face, rabble-rousing, Freedom Caucus obstructionism of leadership politics that the Maga-man himself is known for...the kind of hard-edged politics that says with great glee "Florida is where woke comes to die." (dear God how I loved that). He has spent his entire career wooing the Republican base. He's been adding. Adding establishment sentiment Adding soft-Magas. Etc.... The moment DeSantis backs away from that and starts to attack the MAGA-base the way you did...that is subtraction. It is the moment his campaign starts to curl up and die into nothing more than establishment vs base politics that actually will divide the party, with himself as the establishment.
The big winners yesterday are guys who dropped off illegal aliens at places like Washington DC and Martha's Vineyard, not guys who acted according to politically correct notions of adulthood. They threw some punches at the vanities of the new progressive cultural hegemony. Your argument should be that they are better than Trump at the game of enraging cultural establishments enraptured with wokeness...... Frankly, Desantis just might be that. But he has an awfully tall hill to climb gaining trust from the Maga faithful. Big step on Tuesday, for sure. But just one step. Long way to go.
Democrats do an outstanding job working with the crazies in their base, finding ways to keep them motivated and an overall positive force. Republicans absolutely SUCK at it. If we don't get a lot better at it, we will continue to underperform.