Breitbart News’ top columnist believes Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis should declare for the presidency — now.
No matter what Donald Trump or his fans think.
“There was only one red wave Tuesday night, and it hit Florida like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” columnist John Nolte wrote on Thursday.
“Four years ago, DeSantis barely eked out a win in a purple state, and, at least by the numbers, through his leadership and results, he turned that purple state into a state that’s redder than California is blue,” he added.
“That’s right… in California, Democrat Gavin Newsom won by 15 points. DeSantis won by 19.”
“If Ron DeSantis wants to become president, he must run in 2024,” Nolte continued. “This isn’t an endorsement. This isn’t an attack on President Trump. This is just a piece of cold, hard analysis.”
“You don’t become president by ‘waiting your turn.’ Instead, you run while you’re on fire, when the wind is at your back, when the political gods are smiling down on you.”
He then cited three examples to bolster his point.
First, Barack Obama in 2008. Obama ignored the advice of party leaders to let Hillary Clinton have her turn and “made history.”
“Had he waited four or eight more years, he might not have been Barack Obama anymore,” Nolte argued. “He might have lost the glow, the fire, the halo. Another Barack Obama might have come along.”
Four years later was Chris Christie.
In 2012, Nolte noted, Christie was not the “narcissistic, backstabbing, shameless mercenary talking head we see on TV today.” Instead, he was “the guy’s guy who loved [Bruce] Springsteen, who beat the teachers’ unions and won the governor’s chair in deep blue New Jersey twice.”
Yet Christie bowed to those who said it was Mitt Romney’s turn, and by 2016, “he’s not Chris Christie anymore. Instead, he’s the petty jerk who hugged Obama during the 2012 campaign and made his keynote address at the Republican convention all about him instead of our nominee Romney… He’s the guy who illegally closed a lane of traffic out of spite.”
Finally, in 2016, it was Hillary’s turn. Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo took a pass for her, and, Nolte noted, “we all saw what happened to him.”
“Does Ron DeSantis really want to wait six years? Will he still be Ron DeSantis in six years? He might be. But he could also make a political miscalculation or flub a hurricane. He’s an astonishingly talented politician, so maybe not,” said Nolte.
But, he added, “His biggest threat is giving Democrats and the media six years to demolish him with a fake scandal. To tie him up with lies. … Right now, Democrats are quaking in their boots at the thought of DeSantis running for president. That means they will stop at nothing to destroy him. Ask Brett Kavanaugh about that.”
As for those who say, “But-but-but it’s Donald Trump’s turn,” Nolte offered: “Well, that’s not how this works.”
“As much as we would all like to see Trump vindicated by winning reelection in 2024, politics is not about anything other than winning elections,” Nolte wrote.
“The fact that it’s Donald Trump’s turn should not stop DeSantis. This is his time. This is his chance. Fortune favors the bold and all that.”
“What’s more, Trump won’t be able to wipe DeSantis out with a nickname or any silly stuff that so effectively twisted Trump’s 2016 GOP opponents up in knots,” he concluded. “It’s pretty easy to mock a U.S. Senator. They have no real record to run on. Additionally, there were no political superstars in that 2016 primary.”
On the other hand, said Nolte, “DeSantis has a record as a doer and a fighter. DeSantis is a political superstar. Trump has already tried to attack DeSantis and discovered his supporters didn’t like it. So what we have here is a very different dynamic.”
“Regardless,” Nolte wrote, “a knockdown, drag-out, bloody-fisted primary almost always benefits the eventual nominee.”
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