Ronbo is pissed off. Madder than a wet hen. Angry as a sack full of rattlers. Irate as a guy with sand in his Speedo.
After everything he has done for Florida — nay, the nation! — and this is how Florida (indeed, the NATION!) repays him.
Iowa poll numbers? In the crapper.
The Koch Bros? Endorsed Nikki Haley.
Sen. Rick Scott? Endorsed Trump.
(Danielle J. Brown via Florida Phoenix)
Gov. Ron DeSantis, First Lady Casey DeSantis, and their three children almost a year ago at the governor’s second inaugural ceremony on Jan. 3, 2023.
Ronbo’s trapped in a desperation tantrum so unhinged he keeps threatening to bomb the Bahamas.
He has decided to show how tough he is, going on the offensive not against Moscow but against a peaceable nation of pink buildings, blue seas, and Black people, wooing voters in Iowa and New Hampshire by hollering, “Like, if the Bahamas were firing rockets into Fort Lauderdale, like, we would not accept that for, like, one minute. I mean, we would just level it.”
The government of the Bahamas has requested urgent clarification.
Here’s the question: How many wheels will fall off the Ronbo bus before it lands permanently and irreparably in the ditch?
Ronbo’s problems go way beyond his reputed penchant for eating pudding with his hands.
Rep. Randy Fine, once DeSantis’ most loyal pet poodle, has turned on his master. Along with a pack of other traitors in the Florida Legislature, he’s defected, switched his endorsement to Trump.
Fine says it’s because the governor was too slow in condemning the Nazis who persisted in waving DeSantis signs all over Florida.
(Fine should have known better: The governor can hardly go around dissing his base, right?)
Backing down
Now Ronbo’s backers are becoming hysterical. That guy who was CEO of the DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down?
He backed down. Bailed. Resigned over issues “well beyond a difference of strategic opinion.”
Adding to the general air of doom and disarray, Ronbo’s big donors wonder what happened to all that campaign cash. DeSantis and PACs supporting him vacuumed up fat checks early on, but a lot of that cash seems to have been blown on private jet travel.
Obviously, Ronbo, his Jackie-wannabe First Lady, and the campaign prop offspring can’t fly commercial.
One donor expressed alarm that “these guys have spent all this money for no return.” He added, “You don’t just keep throwing money at Radio Shack.”
What’s a poor graduate of Yale and Harvard to do? The serious cash is drying up; the media are dismissing him; the elites are ridiculing him; Nikki Haley (like, a GIRL!) is attacking him.
Worst of all, Donald Trump is trolling him. Hard.
Think of it: Ronbo and Plastic Jackie did that adorable Build-the-Wall campaign ad with their adorable kid in 2018 — a huge compliment to then-President Trump — and he repays them with insults, taunting, and sneering.
Trump is also tormenting them by being 30 points ahead in Iowa and 40 points ahead in New Hampshire.
So unfair.
‘Wounded bird’
On Nov. 5, Trump told the Republican Party’s hilariously named “Freedom Summit” that his rivals should drop out of the race. DeSantis in particular: “We hit him hard and now he’s like a wounded bird falling from the sky.”
Before the DeSantis duck splats on the pavement, making an unseemly mess, he’s tried one last, desperate move: debating a guy who isn’t running for president.
Last Thursday on Fox “News,” Ronbo went at California Gov. Gavin Newsom in what moderator Sean Hannity cast with characteristic understatement as both a “mixed martial arts” bout and a “war.”
Fun fact about Newsom: He used to be married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s shouty squeeze.
More fun facts: Newsom is at least four inches taller than DeSantis.
(@BadDebutante/Twitter)
Diane Roberts
While the AP called the debate a “hard to explain” spectacle, it isn’t really hard to explain at all: Newsom was raising his national profile for a likely White House run in 2028; DeSantis, his presidential campaign collapsing around him like a gingerbread house in the rain, is desperate.
As former GOP strategist Stuart Stevens twxxted: “@RonDeSantis will go down as the chump who not only lost every debate in his race but lost to a guy who isn’t even in the race. That’s talent.”
It gets worse: The Washington Post reports that DeSantis campaign staffers smell disaster. A source told the newspaper: “People increasingly think it’s over. It’s a dumpster fire.”
The tough talking “Top Gov” in the ill-fitting flight suit has been forced to come down to earth to watch his White House dreams turn to ash.
Diane Roberts is an eighth-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Times of London, The Guardian and The Washington Post, among others.