A.G. Gancarski
On Saturday night, Ron DeSantis took the Florida Blueprint to the Volunteer State, a place where a recent poll saw him at 12%.
Despite the sub-par numbers, DeSantis offered an aspirational vision, with much of the speech focused on finding a contrast between himself the current President, and painting himself as an heir to another one.
The Governor, in remarks to the Tennessee Republican Party, led off with jabs at President Joe Biden’s cognitive state.
“I’m excited because 2024 is our opportunity to send Biden to his basement in Delaware where he belongs. Now, we, my wife and I were in Iowa earlier today and so this is the second state on our agenda. Biden, I think has been in two states to today. Confusion and disorientation. But that’s just another day at the office here. Look, you got to kind of admire this is a guy that wakes up every morning and his people let him know that he’s the President of the United States. Imagine finding that out every morning,” DeSantis quipped.
DeSantis worked in a jab at Hunter Biden later in the speech in talking about schools and adult material.
“If as an adult if you want adult material, the proper place is not a fourth grade classroom. Okay, go view Hunter Biden’s laptop for all I care just keep it away from our kids,” the Governor joked.
The Governor also got in a line about President Biden’s granddaughter, whom Hunter fathered, in pillorying Biden’s assertion that America’s kids are “all of our kids.”
“First of all, Joe, they’re not your kids. Second of all, before you’re saying they’re all of our kids, why don’t you spend some time with your granddaughter in Arkansas, or at least recognize her existence before you start worrying about our kids.”
In addition to quips reminiscent of Ronald Reagan, the Governor hearkened back to the perception of fiscal discipline during the former President’s heyday in the 1980s.
“We need to have a president that can go into Washington and will actually hold the line on excessive spending and we haven’t had that probably since Ronald Reagan. If you look at the debt that’s been accumulated, yeah, we can sit here and hit Biden and he deserves a lot of it. But it wasn’t just the Democrats. Republicans and Democrats in DC are both responsible for putting us $32 trillion dollars in debt. It’s time to stop and go a different direction.”
Toward the end of the speech, the Governor again recalled Reagan and the election of 1980 in drawing a contrast with Biden.
“2024 I think gives us the best opportunity to put the country on a significantly better path for the first time since Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980. I think the American people look at Biden, they know he’s failed. They know the country is going in the wrong direction, and they want a fresh start. They want to go in a different direction.”
Policy was a focus, and the speech included some newer material than some others.
DeSantis, who has been critical of the U.S. Supreme Court in the recent past, offered praise to two religious freedom decisions late this term.
“You know you y’all hear about some of these Supreme Court cases,” DeSantis said. “A Coach Kennedy in Washington State wins at the Supreme Court. He lost his job as a football coach, because he wanted to hold a prayer at midfield after a high school football game. So he loses his job. He’s got to go all the way to Supreme Court and yes, he wins. And that’s, quote, ‘a victory.’ But our Founding Fathers would have never believed that saying a prayer would have caused you to have to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
“We see this 303 Creative Case. They go all the way to the Supreme Court to say wait a minute, Colorado can’t force you to do messages that you disagree with and that conflict with your Christian faith. Yeah, a victory. But you had three justices that ruled against them,” DeSantis lamented, despite the prevailing conservative view.
DeSantis also brought back the specter of drag queens in explaining why the “woke” military was in trouble.
“They’ve driven off a lot of warriors and recruiting is at a post-Vietnam low. Why is that? It’s because they’re doing social experimentation. They’re doing woke and political ideology. They are taking away from the core mission, and they’re taking their eye off the ball. That is not a military that’s going to be able to stand up to China. It’s not a military, when the Navy is using drag queens to recruit new people, that’s going to be able to defend American freedom abroad. No, that’s a military that’s on the wrong path.”
The Governor also brought back his derisive comic riffs about a certain California city.
“San Francisco–I was there a few weeks ago and you hear different things about San Francisco, there’s–I don’t know if you have ever seen on the internet there’s like a map where they have dots on every place where there’s been public defecation and it like fills up the entire city. It’s like you can’t walk anywhere that’s not somebody having done, you know, done their business on the sidewalk.”
19 comments
My White Housekeeper Christine
July 16, 2023 at 6:08 am
The endless failures of the White “Master Race” have brought them into the minority in wealth, influence and relevance.
Bye now.
My Take
July 16, 2023 at 6:54 am
I have recently wondered whether “white nationalism” would revert to “white power” and then further to “master race,” the traditional concepts.
White & Powerless
July 16, 2023 at 8:03 am
It sure did.
Dont Say FLA
July 17, 2023 at 1:54 pm
Don’t be hiring a white housekeeper unless you got ALL your valuables and documents locked up and all your electronics locked down. Them lying lazy thievin’ Maggas gonna steal ALL your shit, given any chance.
JB
July 16, 2023 at 7:11 am
To Boomers, Ronald Reagan is the Saint of the Church of Holy Republicana Redeemer.
To everyone under 40, he’s the man who gutted the social safety net, made college far more expensive, and crusaded against universal healthcare.
One population is shrinking and the other is growing and becoming much more politically engaged. Waxing nostalgic about Ronald Reagan is no longer the own that Republicans think.
Tom
July 16, 2023 at 2:06 pm
My biggest issues with Reagan were doing away with fairness doctrine and signing the prescription drug marketing act. He was far from being a decent politician/President. With Biden, I’m just happy not hearing from him unlike Trump who found it impossible to stfu.
We really deserve better choices than these clown cars that keeping rolling through town every four years.
PeterH
July 16, 2023 at 7:42 am
Ronald Reagan adopted a failed economic strategy devised by Laffer coined “supply side economics” or “trickle down economics!”
No where on planet earth has this economic blueprint been a success story ….. YET REPUBLICANS CONTINUE TO ADVANCE THE FAILED POLICY.
In his eight years of economic failures, Reagan struggled with an inherited high inflation and somewhat high unemployment. Reagan eventually lowered unemployment exactly 1% point in eight miserable years…… at the cost of tripling the national debt.
The Reagan administration was wreaking in graft, corruption and grifting …..his White House holds the record for the number of administration indictments AND convictions.
So sure …… every Republican holds Reagan in high regard! Reagan started a landslide of Republicans leaving the Republican Party. Today one third of the voting public consider their voting block ‘independents’ ….. belonging to neither party.
INDEPENDENT VOTERS DECIDE WHO SITS IN THE OVAL OFFICE.
pmath
July 16, 2023 at 8:59 am
Trickle down economics–a.k.a. ‘pee on my head and tell me it’s raining’.
RonBeGone
July 16, 2023 at 7:48 am
If Biden is failing, I think I must be confused about the definition of the word. Bidenomics is working. Positiv change is happening. 2024 will be a banner year for democracy when we finally get to flush out enough of the remaining corrupt cultist MAGAnauts to finally get the work done.
This guy is flailing like a drowning swimmer. The biggest worry we should have about him is how much damage he will do in Florida over the next three years until we can boot his backside to the curb.
PeterH
July 16, 2023 at 12:54 pm
2024 will also be a banner year for the DOW!
woken all up
July 16, 2023 at 8:45 am
Clearly DeSatan needs a Bonzo so this pathetic campaign can finally be put to bed!
Jeanne Locke
July 16, 2023 at 10:13 am
What a hater! He would do nothing to unite a broken country.
M. Mouse
July 16, 2023 at 10:55 am
Governor Goofy sure is a funny one. The more he talks, the more laughs we get. Squeak!
Michael K
July 16, 2023 at 11:23 am
When all else fails with Mr “Never Back Down,” bring out the drag queens. His theme song should be “Send in the Clowns” (with apologies to Stephen Sondheim).
Dont Say FLA
July 16, 2023 at 7:21 pm
The Florida Blueprint is …. random insults? I guess? Seems liek nobody knows what this alleged Florida Blueprint is.
GINO Rhonda keeps running their mouth about this Florida Blueprint, but then all they got, at least as reported, are insults.
LOL @ GINO Rhonda and their apparent lack of ideas. Rhonda’s thought light bulb must to too high up in the air for it to reach their seemingly damaged-by-sports brain.
My Take
July 17, 2023 at 4:44 am
A noted commentator once said something along the lines of, “Even the Suďan laughs at Tennessee.”
MH/Duuuval
July 17, 2023 at 10:10 am
“Confusion and disorientation. But that’s just another day at the office here. Look, you got to kind of admire this is a guy that wakes up every morning and his people let him know that he’s the President of the United States. Imagine finding that out every morning,” DeSantis quipped.
This was precisely the situation during Reagan’s second term when, among other mental gaffes, he claimed to have served in combat during WWII.
Elderly Voter
July 17, 2023 at 10:17 am
Ron’s jokes about dementia and Alzheimer’s are going over really well with us Florida voters, most of whom which have any money for campaign contributions (the REAL votes, the votes that actually matter) are elderly retirees from up North.
My Take
July 17, 2023 at 1:35 pm
I’ll take Biden befuddled over Trump deranged or DeSantis demented anytime.
Comments are closed.