Help wanted: In a slap to Trump, Michigan lawmakers come knocking on DeSantis’ door | Opinion
Just how many ways can defiant Republicans, finally finding their backbone, say to Donald Trump: “As far as 2024 is concerned, we’re just not that into you?”
Earlier this month, 20 allies of the former president rejected his call to back U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy for House Speaker. After almost never-ending and contested rounds of voting, Colorado’s Rep. Lauren Boebert said — out loud, on the House floor — that Trump should instead tell McCarthy, “It’s time to withdraw.”
In December, Louisiana U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy, speaking on CNN, resolutely rejected the premise that Trump is “the leader of the Republican Party.”
And this week, Politico reported that 18 Republican state lawmakers from Michigan delivered a letter to our governor, Ron DeSantis, imploring him to run for president next year.
Youch!
Michigan will be up for grabs in 2024; in November’s midterm elections, Trump-backed candidates for governor, attorney general and secretary of state were walloped — by huge margins — by Democratic incumbents.
Republican leaders in the Great Lakes State are panicked. Trump narrowly won the state in 2016 and flat-out lost it in 2020.
So Trump has sustained, among other hits, a slap, a smack and now, this kick in the shins.
DeSantis has been touted as the smoother, more savvy version of his “godfather” Trump — though definitely not kinder and gentler — and who’s getting high marks as a potential presidential candidate.
But not yet high enough, according to a Morning Consult poll that this week showed Trump with 48% support among potential Republican primary voters to DeSantis’ 31%.
The Michigan lawmakers said they wanted someone who could easily serve two terms in the White House and a candidate who could usher in a new generation of GOP leadership. DeSantis checked both boxes.
However, we have to look at the “new generation” with a raised eyebrow. After all, the younger, more dynamic DeSantis, through hostile words and damaging deeds, is dragging Florida back to the repressive 1950s.
This story was originally published January 19, 2023 at 9:24 AM.
