That is what we are being force fed. Dems should just stop the election cycle now because there is no serious challenger to Clueless Joe and they have rigged the primary process to favor Joe .... and they have decided to not have debates. It is a coronation awaiting.

Over in the Repub corner ,there is a distant chance that DeSantis could be a serious challenger . But Trump is clearly the favorite and gaining momentum.

So let's move on to the general elections some 15 months before the parties convene to conventions . right ? They are the inevitables .They will coast into the 2024 fall campaign.

Tell that to the powerful and well-known President William H. Seward of New York.(1860 ) who was defeated by Lincoln to be the Repub standard bearer .. Seward was leading going into the 1860 Repub convention in Chi-town.

Tell that to the lead Repub in 2015 soon to be President Jeb Bush. Remember him ? He was the Bush that should've been President opposed to GW Bush.

Not Bush ? How about President Scott Walker .... Presidents Marco Rubio ;Chris Christie ;Mike Hucklebee ;Ted Cruze ;Rick Perry . Outsider candidate Donald Trump had no shot against these seasoned politicians ...Ben Carson was the REAL outsider.

We don't know how effective Ron DeSantis' campaign will be. We don't know the effect of all these legal challenges to Trump will have on the campaign. He faces indictments and law suits from Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Fani Willis, Jack Smith, , E. Jean Carroll . Any one of these could derail Trump. Trump could end up spending more time in court than on the campaign trail. He is lucky U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan allowed him to skip the Carroll rape trial. He probably won't be so lucky going forward.


Clueless Joe even in his hay day was as dumb as dirt. But now he is becoming geometrically mentally feeble in his octogenarian years. His Presidency can rapidly explode due to a number of factors .The Biden Crime family's activities are well known and just waiting for someone with the guts to pull the plug on Quid Pro Joe. His cognitive decline is rapidly becoming an issue. He is one unfortunate stumble from full incapacitation . Or he may go too far in his penchant for fondling young girls and sniffing their hair . He is a Hunter Biden (who in defiance is even more frequently advising the 'big guy' and accompanying him on Air Force One junkets ) text away from an orange jump suit. The Dems have some pretty vigorous challengers waiting in the wings who would not be the puppet of the progressive wing .... But would be the face of the wing.

So this is just a long winded way to say that it is way too early to call the race.

Former Trump campaign advisor Steve Cortes; who was named to the Trump administration’s Hispanic Advisory Council, has jumped ship and endorsed DeSantis in a Newsweek op-ed . He writes 'our America First movement has always been bigger and more important than any one individual, and heading into this crucial election, our activism and our votes must be guided by a clear-eyed assessment of recent failures and potential future successes.'

He cites these reasons for his defection from Trump .

1. We've seen this Biden-Trump movie already—and no one likes it.

2. There is no substitute for victory.

Quote:

---

After extremely disappointing losses in 2018, 2020, and 2022, the Republican Party and the broader patriotic populist movement must find a way to halt the trend of losing and pivot to winning candidates and approaches for 2024 and beyond.

---

3. Discipline and policy results over chaos.

In my view this is the biggest difference between the two . Trump's term while often effective but was also undisciplined .

Quote:

---

... during DeSantis' tenure in Florida, the state has transformed into a beacon of economic opportunity, cultural sanity, and science-based policy agendas.

---

As Cortes points out ; DeSantis wins when the vote counts...... at the ballot box ,and as with their feet as people move to Florida at an incredible rate .

Ron DeSantis for President | Opinion (newsweek.com)

DeSantis will announce his candidacy tomorrow . Play Ball !! The regular season begins . Teams in the Repub league are lining up . It was Tim Scott throwing his hat in the ring. So has/will Larry Elder . They represent the dual Dem smear as the Black face of white supremacy . Others considering runs are Chris Christie and John Sununu and a host of others . Trump says bring it on ;the more the merrier as his opposition divides and loses.

The Dems are in a holding pattern waiting for Clueless Joe to eat his final ice cream cone, Their bench waits and waits and waits knowing that the inevidible (Clueless Joe dropping out of the race ) is bound to happen . When that happens the playoffs will begin .

For the Dems ;they know Kam the Sham is not the answer . There are a host of wannabees chomping at the bit to enter the race. They can't as long as the geezer king goes through the motions while drooling his oatmeal .
One way or the other his term ends in January 2025 or sooner ,

Once that happens the Repubs go from'who can best beat Clueless' to 'who can best articulate a vision of the future' . That is when Trump will be given the 'thanks for your service but we don't need you anymore'.

btw ;putting a monkey wrench in Cluless' attempt at a coronation instead of a campaign ;New Hampshire and Iowa have decided to move up their caucus/primary date ahead of the planned South Carolina coronation date .
Given a probable backlash in those states to Joe's clear dis it is unlikely he will win those early contests . Imagine RFK Jr or Marianne Williamson being the front runner going into SC .

btw Trump superPAC's have spent more money trashing DeSantis than they spent supporting GOP candidates in 2022. Trump has a base . But his ability to prop up his party is thin. Reagan's classic 11th commandment "Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican." is history .

If Trump was so sure DeSantis has no chance then why spend mega $$$$$$$$$ trashing him ?

For DeSantis ;as the saying goes , if you are receiving flack you must be over the target .

DeSantis threw his hat in the ring yesterday in an ill advised manner . He chose a new format of Twitter that is audio only . The audience overwhelmed the server and there were disruptions as a result.

Most important there was no video; and that was where the biggest mistake was made. Most times we get visual without substance. This time we got substance and no video. That could be worse . This is not the days of Roosevelt and the radio fireside chat. Since 1960 and the Kennedy -Nixon debate we have known how important the visual signals are .

Today's Salon features a zingy article about Meatball Ron, Musk, and even tossed Trump into the mix. Reading it even before I got out of bed started my day with a big grin.

https://www.salon.com/2023/05/25/mea...7ac1a34c028490

you link to an article about Trump's legal issues .

This one is about DeSantis launch .

“Astoundingly humiliating”: DeSantis brutally mocked after Twitter launch ends up a big “mistake” | Salon.com

It was a mistake to launch on Twitter. There is not enough audience . Many conservatives have not returned tp Twitter after their pre-Musk membership in the Censorship Industrial Complex . Many still do not Trust Twitter . Trump has not returned so some of the base DeSantis is trying to reach did not hear it . He did better later on during one on one interviews with Trey Gowdy ,Mark Levin and others .

Added the correct link. Thanks for the head's up, tom.

I think his message is sound. But having a simulated Zoom conference is not the way to reach the largest audience . He'd almost be better off using Morse Code and telegraph.

His message sucks big-time.

no arguing with that logic.

Daniel Henniger at WSJ has an interesting op-ed . He argues that there is a Trump-Biden codependency.

I'll provide a link and excerpts .

The Trump-Biden MAGA Codependency - WSJ

Mr. Biden has become known for seeming to be confused. But at the most elemental level, a political animal knows exactly what he has to do to survive: identify his opposition, demean it and defeat it.
Mr. Biden believes, with reason, that his survival and second term depends on one thing—defeating Donald Trump. Not Kevin McCarthy. Not Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin,,, Donald Trump. This outcome depends on—and it’s another reasonable assumption—the Republican base defaulting to make Mr. Trump the nominee.


For the next year, Mr. Biden’s reason for being president becomes not merely getting a deal on the debt ceiling (though that matters politically) but ensuring that the phenomenon known as “Trump” remains in public view as a greater source of public discomfort than Mr. Biden himself.
It’s a heavy lift. Mr. Biden’s poor polling numbers are familiar. His overall approval rotates around 40%. He is below that on virtually every other serious public issue. So what’s he got going for himself? He’s got MAGA.

The Biden MAGA dog whistle works because Mr. Trump is using the same whistle. For Mr. Trump, voters who self-identify as MAGA are the core he expects to stay with him through the coming year of lawsuits, indictments, the Republican mud-pit primaries against Ron DeSanctimonious and Chris Christie, and ultimately fighting Mr. Biden next year. Mr. Trump’s deep MAGA codependency is the reason he said during the CNN town hall that he would pardon “a large portion” of the Jan. 6 rioters. Whoever they are, he’s got to have them.


Fair or not, MAGA will be a problem for Republicans generally. House Republicans who voted for Mr. McCarthy’s modest spending reductions are being forced to explain why their bill is an act of governance rather than MAGA resentment. As House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries chirped this week: “Extreme MAGA Republicans want to end Social Security as we know it.”
All the Republicans running against Mr. Trump will say one way or another they want to make America great again. None will embrace “MAGA.” That’s a Trump thing.
Mr. Biden’s bet is that a small but decisive majority of voters will forgo a second MAGA-centric presidency in favor of a flawed incumbency (assuming he makes it to November 2024). From where Mr. Biden is sitting, it isn’t a bad bet.

.................................................. .................................
I voted for Trump in 2020 based on what I believe was a good Presidency (at least until covid knee capped him ). I would vote for him again if he were the nominee. But I don't believe he could win...... even against Clueless Joe.

Texas majority Republican Legislature impeached Repub AG Ken Paxton ; a Trump supporter .

The timeline of his corrupt reign is here ,

Timeline of events leading to the impeachment of Republican Texas AG Ken Paxton | PBS NewsHour

There is no political dispute here . He will be convicted by the Republcan dominated Texas Senate . The trial will begin around the end of August. There are multiple articles of impeachment . There is no question he is a corrupt AG ;the very kind of AG that needs to be purged and removed from office.

Trump is calling the GOP legislature RINOs and he is calling out Gregg Abbott for the impeachment . So now in a few short weeks Trump has called out the 2 most popular GOP Guvs .

Trump may be leading in the polls now . But I sense a meltdown ahead.

Further proof of his meltdown is his attacks on Kayleigh McEnany because she in his mind understated his lead on DeSantis . He attacked someone who loyally stood beside him ;took the arrows for him ,during the hardest time of his Presidency .He called her "Kayleigh 'Milktoast' (sp*) McEnany," in a post at his social media site because she said he had a 25 pt lead instead of the 34 pt lead he believes he has . What a petty prick . This is just another example of his vicious turn on people who dare to not show 100% loyalty in his warped view.

He also said "The RINOS & Globalists can have her. FoxNews should only use REAL Stars!!!"

*Milquetoast is the correct spelling .

Paxton update

His wife Angela Paxton is in the State Senate ;and as such will be a member of the jury deciding Ken Paxton's guilt or innocence . As of now she has not recused herself.Not that she has a choice. State law says she must participate .

State Sen. Angela Paxton to attend her husband’s impeachment trial | The Texas Tribune

Here is hoping the repubs go in a different direction than Trump. Still, with all his deficits, he would be a vast improvement over the current inhabitant of the WH.