The Iowa Republican presidential caucuses will take place next week, and if the rumor mill is correct, that should be the final nail in the doomed-from-the-start Ron DeSantis campaign. Despite every effort from the Democrat Party, Fox News, and an army of obnoxious paid Twitter trolls, the DeSantis campaign somehow never caught on with Republican voters. Go figure. The rumor mill has been cranked up to 11 now and indicates that if DeSantis places in third or fourth next Tuesday, the self-immolation of his campaign will be complete.
Republican consultant Douglas MacKinnon a White House writer for presidents Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush. He penned a credible-sounding op-ed in The Hill this past weekend, which makes it sound like Iowa is the do-or-die moment for the DeSantis campaign.
MacKinnon writes:
“I have heard from two people very familiar with the DeSantis campaign — a major donor and a high-level political operative — that if the Florida governor loses the Iowa caucuses to former President Donald Trump as expected on the night of Jan. 15, he will either drop out of the race that night or make his announcement the next morning.”
“More than that, both believe DeSantis will then — very begrudgingly — endorse Trump for president,” MacKinnon continues.
According to an editor’s note on the MacKinnon piece, the DeSantis campaign “vigorously denies” the rumors, but that’s what they’re paid to say. They claim that DeSantis is in this for the long haul, which is exactly what they learned to say when earning their political science degrees.
MacKinnon doesn’t buy that, however. If Iowa ends up being a blowout for Donald Trump as expected, he says more donors will flee the sinking DeSantis ship. Trump can also expect a new busload of endorsements from people if he wipes the floor with the competition as expected.
“Come the night of Jan. 15, we will see whether DeSantis folds his hand and walks away from the table or goes all in with his dwindling stack of chips should ego rule reason,” wrote MacKinnon. “I suspect reason will win that contest.”
Well… the DeSantis operation has surprised us in that area before. We thought that reason would prevail and that Ron DeSantis would never betray Donald Trump and the MAGA movement by jumping into the race in the first place. It was obvious from the very start that the RINO billionaires offering him loads of cash to take on Trump were the same people who brought us such Republican disasters as John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Jeb! 2016 were up to their old tricks.
The siren song of that cash was just too much for Ron DeSantis’s ego to pass up. Kristi Noem and Glenn Youngkin were made the same offer that DeSantis received, but they were smart enough to take a pass. They’ll both probably be frontrunners in 2028 for sitting out the 2024 election. DeSantis, on the other hand, has burned every bridge with the MAGA voters that he thought he was going to outsmart.
Analysts are going to be writing about this failed DeSantis campaign for years to come. It truly has been the worst-waged political campaign in modern history. None of us have seen anything quite like it before.
From the Christmas party video of DeSantis campaign staffers lighting strippers’ butt cheeks on fire to insulting the January 6 political prisoners, every single thing that this campaign has done has been 180 degrees wrong.
What do you think? If Ron DeSantis gets shellacked next Tuesday as expected, is it time for him to drop out?
