By Diane Roberts
Something is terribly wrong here: Iowa, a far-off land of snow and butter, failed to give our Ronbo a win.
Yet he did everything right.
He visited all 99 counties. He shook hooves with every single cow.
He showed his “human side,” having his security people drag so-called climate protesters out of his rallies, sugar-shaming a kid drinking an Icee; and laughing — a lot! — a laugh many compared to the fun-loving Emperor Palpatine of “Star Wars.”
He took his kids to Iowa’s famous “Field of Dreams” where, in a delightful and totally unstaged family photo-op, he threw baseballs at his 5-year old.
He displayed the depth of his feelings toward his wife when he gave her a warm handshake after one of the debates.
Most of Florida’s government moved to Iowa to campaign for him: Cabinet officers, legislators, agency heads, and state employees usually stuck doing boring “service” stuff for taxpayers.
Impressive! What do you want bet Ronbo made one of his cute little jokes, maybe “nice job you got there; it’d be a shame if something happened to it.”
Taking the hint, these loyal minions used personal leave days, paying their own way, buying their own snow boots, freezing their fannies off for the man who could give them sweet federal appointments if only he could get into the White House.
Despite all of this, despite Casey wearing extra-tight jeans to campaign events, Ronbo failed to win a single county.
How could that be? Iowa Republicans are very white, as white as a Moms for Liberty orgy, as white as a debutante in an ice storm, as white as George Washington’s Sunday-go-to-meeting wig.
His people!
Blame game
So, who’s to blame? Not Ron DeSantis, of course.
Maybe too many of his voters were on vacation in Florida (the Iowa of the subtropics), sitting by the pool in Boca when they suddenly exclaimed, “Aw, gee! I totally forgot the caucus!”
Or maybe they stayed home, glued to ET’s live Emmy red carpet telecast (OMG, did you see the side-boob action on that one girl?).
Ronbo’s theory of why he lost? The media.
The AP and CNN called the winner before everyone voted, putting the hoodoo on the dozens who might have voted for him.
The media are obviously pro-Donald Trump.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR? Riding the Trump Train. CNN? They LOVE Trump.
It’s also Nikki Haley’s fault. She should have gotten out of the way.
She might even be a Democrat plant.
Think about it: She’s practically the same as Crooked Hillary, with her “strong woman” crap and her weird fascination with “the globe.”
As drop-out Vivek Ramaswamy correctly said (though he should have endorsed Ronbo instead of Trump), Haley gives “foreign multinational speeches like Hillary Clinton.”
Ronbo beat her, anyway, winning a full 21 percent of the 110,000 fine white Iowans who bothered to show up, while she only got 19 percent.
In Dunnellon baseball circles that’s called that a “whupping.”
Unlike Ronbo, Haley is a power-mad career politician. Now she’s sashayed off to New Hampshire, boasting about how she’s ahead of him by at least 25 points.
New Hampshire is another remote land of snow, maybe not so much butter, but a lot of RINOs who probably read books.
Nobody cares about New Hampshire.
Ronbo has decided to ignore it in favor of non-snow places.
The spirit of Ronbo
Some so-called “pundits” say he is kaput, done, finito. But like the brave Black Knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” he will keep fighting, even though his arms and legs have been chopped off. [Editor’s note: DeSantis dropped out of the race Sunday, hours after Roberts’s column initially appeared.]
Unbowed (if limbless) the Black Knight says, “All right, we’ll call it a draw.”
That perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Ronbo. His super PACs keep laying off staff, his campaign has burned through most of their cash, but, by God, they will soldier on and never back down.
Not until after the South Carolina primary anyway.
South Carolina is a good state: no snow, plenty of good, wholesome, vaccine-hating, Jesus-loving folks.
Yeah, Haley used to be governor there, but she messed up by taking down the Confederate flag then flubbed a question about the Civil War when she should have just pointed out that slavery taught Black people many useful skills.
She’s a loser and Trump’s crazy, so why hasn’t the nation jumped on the Ronbo bus?
Again, blame the media — the media, their communist friends, RINOs, baby-killers, teachers’ unions, Soros-funded lawyers, weather politicizers, and people who actually enjoyed going to an Ivy League college.
They claim Ronbo is “uniquely unlikeable.”
Certain elitists who served in Congress with him say he’s arrogant, petty, paranoid, and has no friends.
His Yale baseball teammates couldn’t stand him.
Jerks rule!
Who cares? Did everybody love Andrew Jackson? Hell, no. He was crude and violent, stealing land from native people and enslaving Africans.
He probably ate pudding with his fingers, too, because back then, real men didn’t need spoons.
Still, a great president.
What about Richard Nixon? Another great president. Liberals called him a criminal, but without Nixon going all-in on the evils of integration and the scariness of giving Black people rights, most Southern white people would still be Democrats.
What about Victor Orbán? He also gets called “awkward,” “a jerk,” and sometimes “a fascist.”
But look what Orbán’s done in Hungary: shutting down universities, replacing liberal judges with ones who think democracy is overrated, and muzzling any so-called journalists who question his power.
Ronbo could do all that for America if only America could bring itself to like him.
He’ll be the first to tell you he’s a great guy. He’ll protect you from drag queens and scientists, bad books and woke theme parks.
He will never surrender.
And if you voters have the bad taste to reject him as your presidential nominee, watch out. He’ll hold his breath until he’s blue and scream until he’s sick because it’s your fault, not his.
It’s never his fault.
Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.
Pogo says
@Sorry DR
This didn’t age well — I’m listening to Goober throw in the sheet as I type this.
Now we truly can speak of dodging a bullet.
Jane Gentile-Youd says
Thank goodness de Satan has dropped out. What a total control freak of a human being he turned out to be.
Nephew Of Uncle Sam says
Just saw he’s gone. He’ll most likely come back triumphantly and spew his rhetoric on the people of Florida, including how the big bad President Biden cost him the Presidency.
Skibum says
Poor Ronny, nobody wanted him. Not in Iowa, not in the other upcoming primary states either. Unfortunately for us here in FL, he will continue, at least for the immediate future, to occupy the helm of state leadership although he is anything but a true leader. Once he showed his true colors to all of America, he revealed himself to be notihng more than the wanna-be emporer with no clothes.
dave says
Ron DeSantis suspends his presidential bid and endorses Trump. Best news, now that he is term limited in Fla as Gov, his days are numbered.
Michael Cocchiola says
Oh, crap. He’s out. Fascism didn’t sell.
Do we have to take him back?
Bill C says
Governor who?
Bart says
He played baseball in Dunedin…
Tony Mack says
Fortunately for DeSantis, but unfortunately for those of us who live in Florida, his boot licking Republican legislature passed a law this year that allowed him to run for national office and still retain his position as governor! Even they knew he was a loser!!!
c says
Unfortunately, while we’re safe from DeSanctimonious on a Federal level, we still have to live with him on a state level, thanks to his cult cronies ‘re-interpreting’ the plain language of the State Constitution, and allowing him to campaign while he was supposed to be Governing.
We won’t be truly safe till he’s gone.
Atwp says
Thank God.
John Stove says
Loser from day 1….cant wait until he is no longer the Governor. To those of you who supported him, time to take down the “Desantis 2024″….”Make America Florida” flags down…..ha…..ha
I told you
c says
Gawd, I wish it were possible to watch this fiasco play out from somewhere where it wouldn’t affect me (Like Mars, maybe?). It could be soooo comical to see the MAGA Trumpeteers get what they THOUGHT they were promised, only to be hit with the hard truth – if I didn’t have to endure it myself.
The one thing about the whole Trump/political arena I don’t understand is HOW these idiots (Like Desantis, and and Cruz, etc) expect that supporting him will make ANY difference in his returned support? Trump has shown time and time again that he will drop you and punt you like a cantaloupe if you piss him off.
Like my Dad used to say “Ignorance can be cured , Stupidity must be endured”.
Charles says
Did you notice how his head bobs up and down like a doll in the back window of a car. He sure is one strange character.
Judith Michaud says
Oh yes, thank goodness he dropped out, but the scary part is, Donnie will probably pick him for his VP running mate! Now that would be a nightmare, since so many people are unwilling to face the truth about this criminal ! So scary !
Denali says
Good to see that the use of the mono-sentence is alive and well. Just what are you trying to say? I am sure there is a coherent thought somewhere in this jumble of words.
Endless dark money says
He was licking trumps boots before he sat the microphone down
BY-RON says
Lucky for us, he had the law changed so he can still be our ruler here in FL.
Pogo says
@JM
1. Not much to worry about with Disaster being VP — Trump never forgets, or forgives, “You broke my heart, Fredo.”
2. The criminals who run GOP political practice know what they would do: grainy black and white ads with menacing narration featuring DeSantis betraying Plastic Jesus Trump.
3. DeSantis is a mean, petty, social climbing opportunist who has had a government job, healthcare, and housing his entire adult life. He will continue to torment anyone he considers defenseless and pander to the reactionary noise machine that created him, in hopes of joining its cast; his presence broadcast into the interstellar void for eternity.
All in all, one more grotesque moment, among the innumerable ones just like it, in human history.
dave says
Ah Ronny will still be Gov until he is made to leave office in Jan. 2027. Darn shame he just didn’t call it quits and go into car sales or something.
c says
But, But, But Ronnie said he wouldn’t be Donnie’s buttboy. Are you insinuating that Ronnie might lie???
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ron-desantis-vice-president-newsmax_n_641d7991e4b0bc5cb6561a07
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/625273-ron-desantis-on-being-donald-trumps-vp-would-you-take-it/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ron-desantis-rules-out-being-trumps-vice-president-b2422555.html
But, of course, these are all just factual news quotes, which have no reality in the MAGAverse.
c says
Someone take your bridge, Troll?
Bill C says
Absolutely! What a bobblehead. The impression was he couldn’t control his own head, let alone the country.
PS ever notice Trump’s pursed little fish mouth expression when he talks?
palmcoaster says
He now will bow to try and get on Trump’s ticket as Vice! Also can get really mad and increase the charter flights of border crossers to help Texas, in our pockets! Meanwhile low income school age and younger children go without enough healthy food.
Derrick Redder says
Perhaps now he can focus on the stuff here. Like end Daylight Savings Time.
After it springs leave it be.
In today’s world it serves little purpose.
Willy Boy says
Desantis = LOOSER!