Bob MaistrosThis scribe last employed the term “no-brainer” to urge House Republicans to import one Donald J. Trump to take the speaker’s gavel.
Not only to drive the Trump-deranged opposition stark raving mad – but to provide the high-profile, “to the mattresses” leadership to shut the government down if necessary to tame the budget and control the border. To give the Bidenites pause in further pursuing politicized prosecutions against the top official of a co-equal branch. And maybe, to encourage The Donald to cede the presidential nomination to a younger rival.
Stipulated: Your correspondent fleetingly considered it a masterstroke that the Caucus instead selected a principled “movement and, yes, MAGA conservative.”
Missed it by that much. Poor Mike Johnson has in practice proved to be Kevin McCarthy in MAGA drag.
As a result, the sad-sack Stupid Party™ finds itself:
- In yet another continuing resolution cul se sac and potentially, facing another mutiny from conservative ranks
- With its almost-certain nominee being pinned down by law-faring Lilliputians and perfectly set up for Election Steal, 2024 Edition
- And with its best presidential candidate sidelined: that being Ron DeSantis – a governor who can actually govern and who turned a purple state flaming red.
But maybe, just maybe, the standard-bearer for The Party with No Brain™ can salvage the situation by coming through where his comrades-in-arms fell through, on another “no-brainer.”
To wit: tout de suite, immediately and without delay, install the shining star from the Sunshine State as his running mate.
(P.S., Since Orange Man is to homes what Chef Boyardee is to canned pastas, the constitutional trifle regarding two Florida residents can surely be managed with one change-of-address card.)
Why is Guv Ron the obvious and only choice? To start: despite his stumbling, bumbling, tumbling primary belly flop, DeSantis is a proven vote-getter on one of the biggest stages in politics. In his 20-point re-elect landslide, he flipped even fluorescent blue Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties and enabled his party’s U.S. senator and four new Republican House members to hitch rides on his powerful coattails.
Floridians especially appreciated his COVID-era doggedness, opening schools and businesses in the face of withering criticism. And even controversial initiatives – such as shipping illegals to Martha’s Vineyard and outlawing sexual and racial indoctrination of pre-schoolers – resonated with voters of all political stripes.
Second: The Florida chief executive nevertheless managed to out-MAGA Mr. MAGA. Take Fox’s Iowa entrance poll. His “Freedom Agenda” has matched or outdelivered Trump on nearly every priority identified by caucus-goers:
- Immigration (ID requirements, banning sanctuary cities, sending troopers to the Texas border)
- economic growth and jobs (#1 among large states in both)
- countering wokeness in schools (empowering parents plus disinvesting pensions from ESG)
- fully funding police (offering bonuses to attract officers to Florida)
- concern about legal-system weaponization (firing Soros-funded prosecutors)
- strong leadership (e.g., rebuilding a hurricane-destroyed bridge in a week)
- support for Israel (sanctions against BDS)
- working across the aisle (insurance reform, condo safety, Everglades protection, teacher raises)
- “the best policy ideas” (especially: the first state with universal school choice, a potentially nationwide electoral winner)
- and perhaps most significant, abortion (huge majorities of Iowa Republicans favor 15- and even six-week cutoffs like the ones DeSantis signed and Trump loudly opposes).
Pundits declared that Iowa Republicans delivered a clear message about which candidate they wanted. By what they told pollsters, that was actually DeSantis.
Most important: DeSantis is the perfect Trump wingman. Florida conservatives exulted as the governor manhandled a hostile media, bowled over teachers’ unions, stared down Disney, and stuck it to sanctuary cities. He has so flattened Democrats statewide that neutral and even leftish observers describe the party as being “in disarray,” and in a state of “disorder” and “suspended animation and chaos.”
Repeating the performance to keep their sorry national counterparts on their back feet, while Trump stays above the fray and deals with his legal problems, would be shooting fish in a barrel.
Equally important, DeSantis, previously a Navy lawyer, assistant U.S. attorney and congressman, can defeat and drain the swamp: to quote once again a noted observer of the political scene, he doesn’t just know where the bodies are buried, he put many of them there. The veep could help prevent a recurrence of Trump’s own team stymying his agenda.
But note especially: the new Gov. DeSantis moved to dispatch corrupt county election supervisors, get ballot harvesting banned, and clean up mail-in voting. Result: the state that once defined election shenanigans delivered clean, decisive results within hours of polls closing in 2020 and 2022.
Which brings us to campaign job one: preventing a repeat of the 2020 vote-rigging by an admitted elite “cabal.”
Put the lawyer who kept Navy Seals in Iraq, jailers in Guantanamo Bay, and elections in Florida on the straight-and-narrow in charge of creating and implementing rapid response capability to:
- nip in the bud unconstitutional executive/administrative alterations of election laws and procedures
- sniff and snuff out “Zuckerbucks” initiatives to commandeer elections offices
- ensure mail-in voting is above board
- fast-track challenges to, and push for immediate, serious investigations of suspicious ballots and vote-counting activities.
- exhaustively document and compile proof of wrongdoing to counter the outrageous and vacuous “no-evidence” protestations that enabled the “Big Lie” narrative.
And, as suggested here previously, run through and prepare for the scenarios to implement the necessary and fully justified Free State Opt-Out if another election heist is affirmed.
Mr. Trump: congratulations on cementing the nomination. Now take the next big step to prevent getting rolled again in November. And “now” means now.
Bob Maistros is a messaging and communications strategist, crisis specialist, and former political speechwriter. He can be reached at bob@rpmexecutive.com.
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
You’ve made a compelling case, but Ron’s endorsement of Trump struck me as rather half-hearted, and I don’t think he wants to be Veep.
There is no “constitutional trifle” regarding two Florida residents. The Constitution states only that presidential electors cast ballots separately for president and vice-president. The 12th Amendment requires only that one of those votes must be for someone residing other than in the electors’ own state.
So ALL that means is that if a Trump-DeSantis ticket were to win Florida, the Florida electors, and ONLY the Florida electors, could not vote for both of them.
I see this misinfo almost everywhere, and I wish its purveyors would get it right.
Doesn’t matter. Bush and Cheney fixed it in an instant. Cheney simply reverted back to his previous residency in WY. Trump could do the same thing to NY. Or NJ for that matter.
Not a matter of “fixing” anything. They don’t have to do that constitutionally. However, the more important issue is the optics, and politically it doesn’t look good to have both from the same state.
As for Trump, I really doubt that he would re-establish residence in NY, for very obvious reasons.
I disagree with this proposal. Making DeSantis V.P. effectively emasculates the man, as the position for all intents and purposes is largely ceremonial. Sure, the V.P. is the president of the Senate and can break a tie vote, but other than that, name one V.P. who has truly been a stand out.
No, I think it might be wise to allow DeSantis to serve out his term as Florida’s governor. He cannot run for another term. Once he’s in the clear, bring him in as Secretary of Defense (he’s been in the military AND is a lawyer). That gives him chops on the national level, and the bona fides for a presidential run in 2028.
Change my mind?
Depending on the occupant, the VP in recent years has been a fairly substantive position.
Bush 41 played a role in regulatory reform and foreign policy.
Quayle essentially had a shadow conservative presidency that rehabilitated his reputation until “potato” (where he was sandbagged by event organizers, but that’s another story).
Gore pushed a “reinventing government” agenda.
Cheney had a shadow foreign policy establishment.
Biden was a tool as VP as now.
Pence provided a critical liaison to conservatives until the unfortunate COVID and January 6 fiascos.
As suggested in this article, DeSantis could be the most substantive of all. He could not only inform pro-MAGA policies from having innovated and implemented them at the state level, but be Trump’s watch- and attack dog in taking on both Deep State opposition and efforts to undermine his agenda from his own team.
Unlike Trump who was regularly rolled, DeSantis knows the bureaucracy, knows the justice system and knows the defense establishment from the inside. He would be a valuable player.
More important, if immediately put in charge of an election integrity task force, he could have half a chance to stop an other election steal. (But no more than half.)
Wouldn’t work; they would kill each other.
There is no room for “like” in politics. Expediency is the key. Biden and Harris abhor each other. But it’s in both’s best interests to be where they are.
I think a lot of that back-and-forth sniping was performance art. DeSantis ran campaign ads in his first race for governor reading to his infant son from the Art of the Deal and “building the wall” with blocks with his daughter. Trump immediately buried the hatchet with him.
Stick with certified MAGA.
Trump will pick someone he defined as disloyal?
And then there is this…
The Personification of a “Battered Conservative”
…triggered by the truthful expose’ about Ron DeSantis and the hidden manipulative intents and constructs that surrounded his fraudulent run for the Republican nomination.
If you accept that Machiavellian deceit, purposeful manipulation and lying is just politics, then yes, I guess the candidate you support, Ron DeSantis, is just another run of the mill liar in a long list of Republican run-of-the-mill liars. Also, this would be precisely the reason not to support him.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/01/23/the-personification-of-a-battered-conservative/
Why didn’t DeSantis just wait until 2028?
With the exception of a small group of political followers in the State of Florida, few people really understood what the DeSantis 2024 operation was all about.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/01/23/final-thoughts-on-desantis-the-one-way-ticket-few-realized-he-carried/
I like DeSantis for many reasons and agree he should be VP, but the 12th amendment…
Ron would make a great Education Secretary. He’d have the ability to shape policy across every gov-run school, improve access to Charter schools, get rid of ESG, DEI, and gender indoctrination, and undo all the damage Biden’s activist secretary has been doing to our kids.
We have Governor DeSantis concession/withdrawal speech posted on Common Cents. It’s PURE CLASS!
https://www.commoncts.blogspot.com
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com
I am ambivalent regarding the VP spot but I would like to suggest the following: Create a Department of Government Efficiency and put Vivek and Rand Paul in charge. Their quantifiable goals is to reduce government expenditure by 80%.