DeSantis files in South Carolina, disappointing nay-sayers everywhere

Florida man disappoints critics and stays in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. Film at eleven.

That’s what it feels like today with all the breathless doom and gloom coming from legacy media and online publications. Ron DeSantis isn’t going anywhere. Trump has tried since last Fall to mock and berate and taunt DeSantis enough to bully him out of the race. He and PACs supporting him have spent more money on negative ads against DeSantis than any other candidate, including Biden. For someone who exaggerates his lead in the polls, saying he’s up to 70 points ahead of DeSantis and everyone else (he’s not) he sure acts like an insecure bully, doesn’t he?

DeSantis is the first Republican to file the paperwork for the GOP presidential primary on February 24th in South Carolina. That seems odd. There are two Republicans from South Carolina running in the primary – former Governor Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott. Why wasn’t a South Carolina native the first to file? Anyway, DeSantis is in the state and doing some events while he’s there. One event included a question asked by a ninth grade girl. She asked about healthier options in school lunches. She told him that her school served canned oranges and frozen pizza. She referenced Michelle Obama’s school lunch interference, er, push for nutritional reform during the Obama administraton. ‘I’m just wondering, is there anything that can be done about that to ensure that we have healthier lunches? And that students can have more options?,’ she asked.

It was a good time for a little educational moment as the governor applauded her interest in healthy eating but said, no, he wouldn’t be getting the government involved in school lunch programs. Democrats think that more governmental involvement is the answer to everything, not Republicans. Especially something as individualized as school lunches. One size doesn’t fit all. Government involvement usually means a whole lot of waste. Remember all the complaints by school lunch ladies about the huge amounts of food being wasted because the kids wouldn’t eat the new and improved Michelle Obama-approved lunches?

‘What I don’t want to do, though, is have the federal government come and try to force you to make choices. I think you give people the information, let them know what’s in store,’ he said.

Those closest to the students, not some bureaucrat (or first lady) in Washington, D.C., knows what they’ll eat and adjust accordingly to avoid wasted food and taxpayer dollars.

Michelle Obama got rid of the food pyramid and DeSantis wants to weed out some of the health agencies.

DeSantis, who has noticeably lost weight in the past few months, railed against the recommended servings of carbs and said health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Health and the Food and Drug Administration need to be ‘cleaned out.’

‘They used to do the food pyramid,’ he noted. ‘They said don’t eat fat, eat all the carbs, no, the carbs will make you fat too. And so they were wrong about that. And so I think we got to be honest, and all these agencies, CDC, NIH, FDA, they need to be cleaned out.’

Sounds like a plan.

That story was a welcome break from the rest of the words printed online today about DeSantis and his “floundering” campaign. The big question is, can his campaign retool and regroup enough to get back on track and win the primary, as, say, John McCain did in 2008? Mistakes have been made, that’s true, and apparently his campaign employed way too many staffers, at least at this point in the campaign. They are burning through money too quickly. So, the campaign is making adjustments, getting leaner. I hope DeSantis will begin to focus more on policy ideas and what his priorities will be in the White House and ease off so much focus on social issues. Those resonate with voters but he needs to expand his stump speeches a bit to attract a wider pool of voters. He knows that, he won in Florida with an overwhelming victory with the votes of independent voters and crossover Democrat voters. He won all the demographics, too. He can do it on a nationwide basis, he just needs to regroup.

It can be done. The people writing him off at this stage may be surprised by the end of the year as candidates focus squarely on the beginning of the primaries in February. Who will still be standing? I’d bet on DeSantis.