Donald Trump may still get the attention as the ‘Big Guy’ for the GOP…
But DeSantis is slowly creeping up on the former Republican President who is still crying about his loss to President Biden….
Former President Trump may be the main event at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), but the gathering also put in stark relief Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s growing star power within the GOP.
Conference attendees repeatedly pointed to Trump as their top choice for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. But many also expressed a deepening interest in DeSantis, whom they see as an eventual successor to Trump and future presidential candidate, especially if Trump decides against another White House campaign.
The interest in DeSantis was clear on Thursday as droves of curious attendees filed into the main conference room ahead of his speech before promptly leaving after he had finished. At several points during his remarks, the crowd stood in applause. Just down the hall, a man held a sign emblazoned with “DeSantisland.”….
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Some attendees, however, were less keen on the idea of a comeback bid by Trump. Simon Molina Herrera, a student at the University of Maryland, College Park, and campus coordinator for the conservative group Turning Points USA, said he’s looking forward to “a new generation of leaders” in the Republican Party, pointing to DeSantis as an option.
Still, he said he’s unsure about a 2024 run by DeSantis.
“Ron DeSantis has been one of the greatest governors in the nation — keeping all the businesses open, keeping the state open,” he said. “He’s really great for a presidential candidate, but I think he should run for 2028.”
Asked about a potential 2024 bid by Trump, Molina Herrera said that if the former president runs again, he would most likely vote for another candidate in the primary.
“If he runs, he runs,” Molina Herrera said. “I mean, I’m not sure exactly if I will vote for him in the primaries. But if he ends up as the general candidate in the 2024 election, I think I might support him. We’ll see how everything goes.”….
CPAC Update….
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has much of the world transfixed and on edge. President Biden announced a new Supreme Court appointment who is unlikely to get any significant Republican support.
But at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of the right wing of American politics, the news convulsing the world seemed oddly distant. Instead, the focus was on cultural grievances, former President Donald J. Trump and the widespread sense of victimization that have replaced traditional conservative issues .
And eight months before the midterm elections, familiar Republican themes like lower taxes and a muscular foreign policy took a back seat to the idea that America is backsliding into a woke dystopia unleashed by liberal elites. Even the G.O.P. was more than a bit suspect.
Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump grass-roots group focusing on millennial conservatives, denounced “the Republican Party of old” in his speech to the conference, known as CPAC and held in Orlando, Fla., this year….
More…
I see James’s “man crush”with DeSantis continues.
Thus DeSantis “shines..”
A more appropriate headline?
Florida Extremist Who Is Responsible for thousands of Deaths …New “Star” at Radical Republican gathering.
Desantis remains the runner up for GOPer’s
I have said repeatedly that if Trump is the nominee?
Biden would be a LOCK for a second term….
Who knows what DeathSantis said what impressed James so much? If Trump or Bernie Sanders makes a speech and people applaud, James doesn’t say they shined. So James must like something about DeAthSantis. Maybe “the card-carrying Democrat” can tell us?
While the extremists down in Florida are whooping it up foe DeSantis ,other Republicans are urging a pause in the rush to crown him as Trumps successor.
According to the Washington Post,DeSantis is awkward with donors, aloof and doesn’t even make eye contact.One donor labelled him “painfully awkward.”
Even former staffers are raising “ concerns about whether he has the personal charisma and retail campaigning skills to succeed in the national political spotlight.”
DeSantis post on the way…
Thanks for the ‘heads up’ Jack….