PRESIDENTIAL GAMES:  Didn't we just have a national election?  I'm told there was one in November.  I distinctly remember buying my popcorn and sitting in front of my TV watching the returns.

But, so be it.  We have another one next year, for the presidency, and the campaigns are already underway.  In Britain a national campaign lasts, maybe, six weeks.  Here it's starting to look like a two-year sprint.

It's an unusual campaign.  A former president, defeated for re-election, is running to get back to the Oval Office.  I'm sure someone has told Donald Trump that only one president in American history has done this successfully.  It was Grover Cleveland, tossed out by the voters after one term, re-elected four years later.  Others have tried, without much success.  Republican President Herbert Hoover, defeated by FDR in 1932, tried for the nomination in 1940, but his party turned him down, seeing Hoover as an embittered man of the past, seeking revenge. 

Trump is starting to make his moves.  He clearly sees Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida as his greatest obstacle.  From The Hill:  

Former President Donald Trump lashed out at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday, using his 2024 debut speech in Iowa to rehash his longtime 2020 campaign claims and attack his would-be political rival days after the Florida Republican made an appearance in the Hawkeye State.

In a campaign event in Davenport that was billed by Trump’s campaign as an address on education policy, the former president appeared preoccupied by just about anything other than America’s schools. 

He boasted about the work he did to “save” the ethanol industry, bragged about how he moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and rehashed his baseless claim that he was robbed of a second term in the White House by widespread voter fraud.
“What they do to those machines — what they’re doing, our country is really being hurt very badly,” Trump told the friendly crowd. 

He went after DeSantis, a rising Republican star who’s preparing for a likely 2024 presidential bid, accusing the Florida governor of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare, and comparing him to Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee and a vocal Trump critic.

He also called DeSantis a “disciple” of former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who served as Romney’s running mate in 2012.

“You have to remember, Ron was a disciple of Paul Ryan, who is a RINO loser who currently is destroying Fox [News] and would constantly vote against entitlements,” Trump said, using an acronym for “Republican in name only.” 

“But Ryan, Paul Ryan is a big reason Mitt Romney … lost his election,” the former president continued. “And to be honest with you, Ron reminds me a lot of Mitt Romney, so I don’t think you’re going to be doing so well here.”

Trump’s remarks came during the first Iowa stop of his 2024 presidential bid. He’s been officially seeking the Republican nomination since November, but has largely stayed off the campaign trail. 

His trip to Davenport came just three days after DeSantis stopped in the same city. A Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa Republicans released on Friday showed Trump’s standing in the Hawkeye State on the decline, with 47 percent saying they would definitely vote for the former president if he is the party’s nominee in 2024, a 22-point decline since June 2021.

COMMENT:  I'm not sure that attacking Ron DeSantis, even before DeSantis declares his candidacy, is a good idea.  First, it makes Trump look small and frightened.  Second, he's a former president, and it diminishes his stature. A little needling at this stage, yes.  Reagan did that brilliantly.  ("Well, there you go again.")  But an all-out attack?  Recall, as noted above, that Herbert Hoover failed in his bid to return to the White House in part because he sounded bitter.

Trump should recall Reagan's "11th Commandment" for his party:  "Thou shalt not speak ill of any other Republican."  If he is seen as out only for himself, and for revenge, he'll lose, either at the nomination stage or in the general election. If that happens, he risks going down as a divisive figure who damaged his party, not something he would welcome.

March 14, 2023