Taken For Granite

The New Hampshire primary is today, and it's do or die for Nikki Haley, who could pull a classic Granite State upset against Donald Trump and win or go down swinging like Sonny Liston as the polls (which, in New Hampshire, are never right) suggest.

Haley has hit her heights.  Alliterations aside (well, after that second one), Haley has finally been going after Trump on his increasing cognitive disorder, as he's been confusing her with Nancy Pelosi in talking about January 6 and making beep-beep noises talking about nuclear-missile launch boards.  But she started doing so late - maybe too late to win. But we will see tonight. 

As for the other Republican contenders . . . well, Vivek Ramaswamy's fifteen minutes of fame are pretty much over, though he might have won himself  the Secretary of Commerce position in a Trump 47 administration, but given Trump's racist insinuations against Ramaswamy's fellow Indian-American Haley (oh yeah, South Asians are actually members of the Caucasian race, making them, as George Carlin once called them, dark brown white people, so it's actually ethnicism, or perhaps xenophobia), that's not likely.  Asa Hutchinson, the only 2024 Republican presidential candidate not from New Jersey who called Trump on his crimes, also quit the campaign, much to the delight of the Democratic National Committee, which sent out a press release joking that they hadn't even noticed that he was still running.  Sort of like when I learned this month that Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie Norton on "The Honeymooners," died at 99 and I said to someone that I hadn't even known she was still alive - except that I didn't say that as a joke!  Anyway, President Biden personally apologized to Hutchinson, realizing how mean-spirited that press release was, especially when Hutchinson was an anti-MAGA comrade in arms.  But that's the Democratic National Committee for you.  Heck, leading Democratic Party members ridiculed Martin O'Malley in 2016 when he exited the presidential campaign - and he's a fellow Democrat!

And then there's Ron DeSantis . . .

After a landslide re-election victory as governor of Florida that destroyed Florida's state Democratic Party like a hydrogen bomb, DeSantis was a colossus in the national Republican Party and seen as the logical heir apparent to Trump, and he looked like an attractive candidate, advocating Trumpist policies without Trump's toxic personality.  Unfortunately, DeSantis turned out to have a toxic personality of his own.  His inability to smile, for example, is clearly evident in the photo above, and he couldn't work up enough energy with voters to even display an affectation of warmth.

Democrats were hoping that DeSantis would be strong nationally as he's been in Florida and cause a knockout brawl with Trump that would mirror the Ford-Reagan battle of 1976.  Instead, the DeSantis campaign was destroyed like the Florida Democratic Party, and in both cases it was DeSantis who did the destroying.  He tried so hard to show his MAGA credentials that he came across as a vindictive, angry man who would do anything to further his political career - and not just as a presidential candidate. He had been going after gays and picking fights with Disney even before he declared his candidacy for President, as well as restricting abortion in his state even before Dobbs was handed down by the Supreme Court.       

DeSantis will still be governor of Florida for another three years, but his political career is all ready over.  By 2028, no one will want DeSantis to run for President.  His chances for a Trump 47 Cabinet position have already been blown to bits.   

He died with his high-heeled boots on.