Not an auspicious start!
Maybe the pudding story is behind the tanking polls? The Daily Beast says two sources confirm that during a 2019 flight from Tallahassee to D.C., DeSantis ate a cup of chocolate pudding using three fingers instead of a proper utensil. (The pudding flavor and number of digits are oddly specific details that lend credence to the allegation, IMO.)
In an interview this week, Piers Morgan asked DeSantis if it was true that he ate a cup of pudding on an airplane using three fingers while governor of Florida, and he said “I don’t remember doing that.” Which means he totally DID do that and is just afraid to deny it in case video evidence surfaces. Wouldn’t a normal adult person who did not eat pudding with their fingers four years ago simply deny it?
Someone posted an excerpt of this NBC News report on DeSantis’s flailing campaign in the overnight thread, but it bears repeating because HA!
WASHINGTON — Ron DeSantis may be missing his moment.
A number of the Florida governor’s donors and allies are worried his recent stumbles suggest he may not be ready for a brutal fight against Donald Trump. Some feel DeSantis needs to accelerate his timeline to run for the GOP presidential nomination and begin directly confronting Trump if he’s to have any chance of thwarting the former president’s momentum. Others believe DeSantis should sidestep Trump altogether and wait until 2028 to run.
At a Sunday luncheon following the annual Red Cross ball in Palm Beach, Florida, a group of 16 prominent Republicans, described by one attendee as a mix of DeSantis backers and Trump “skeptics,” discussed misgivings about the governor’s standing for the future if he tussles with the former president.
“They liked him — many of them might even support him,” the person who was at the event said of DeSantis. “But they thought on balance that his long-term future was better without him trying to take Trump head on.”
“He will get scarred up” by Trump, the person added.
Then there’s conservative billionaire shipping goods magnate Richard Uihlein and his wife, Elizabeth, whose $500,000 in combined contributions ranked them among the most generous donors to DeSantis’ 2022 re-election campaign.
A person familiar with the strategy around Uihlein’s spending said that right now, “The brakes are pumped,” adding, “The polling really made different people pause.”
These people advising DeSantis to tiptoe around Trump were likely homeschooled or rich little snots who had personal security details because they don’t know how to deal with a schoolyard bully.
Open thread.
Math Guy
To paraphrase LBJ: I know he doesn’t eat pudding with three fingers; I just want to make him have to deny it in public.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Betty, you seem to be taking unholy delight in your governor’s distress!
lollipopguild
If trump was not in the way Gov. freedum would probably be the frontrunner at this point.
lollipopguild
MomSense
Pudd ‘n Boots! Fucking brilliant!!
Cameron
What was that old commercial? “The best part of fucking up/is fingers in your cup?” Something like that.
danielx
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
No “seems” about it, and nothing unholy either. Can’t think of a governor who deserves it more. Okay, maybe Greg Abbott and that douche rocket from Mississippi.
Gary K
Please make sure TFG gets wind of your epithet. I’d love to hear that phrase spew out of his mouth.
NotMax
Sheesh. Everyone knows the proper method is to use a hat.
;)
Anyway
Lololol!!!! I didn’t eat pudding with three fingers… Bwahahaha!
This made my weekend.
Baud
Eating pudding with your fingers sounds like a euphemism for something nasty.
OzarkHillbilly
Eats pudding with his fingers. OK, a little weird but hardly disqualifying. He needs to grow a pair.
Hungry Joe
If he’d just said something vaguely human, like, “Yeah, you got me. There were no utensils around, but I mean, I was REALLY in the mood for chocolate pudding. So I figured, What the heck, and went for it,” he’d probably have GAINED some points. But he doesn’t have it in him.
Kay
Betty, you need to watch the Piers Morgan interview. DeSantis has this big, phony fake laugh now. It’s bizarre because he opens his mouth WAY too much. I think this fits with his disgusting table manners, actually.
The fake laugh/fake smile is going to become a point of ridicule. It’s very funny to watch.
Someone must have told him the sour, whiny, high pitched voice and unpleasant demeanor was bad but that’s who he is so the cure is sort of worse because it’s so fake.
Baud
As long as he doesn’t eat arugula, it’s all good.
suzanne
:::barf:::
I bet he made slurping sounds, too.
:::BARFFFFF:::
Baud
Three-fingered Ron would be a good epithet.
I wonder if the issue is that Ron doesn’t remember how many fingers he used.
Josie
@Hungry Joe:
This is exactly what I was thinking. He could make a joke about it and have people laughing and agreeing with him that eating chocolate pudding is more important than the correct utensils. Who among us has not sucked the chocolate chip cookie dough off of our fingers at one time or another?
Doc Sardonic
Ohhhhh……I bet Dollar Store Jackie O is pissed. Things are prolly a little tense in the mansion, wonder what her tantrum tossing item of choice is.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Two girls, one cup?
Balconesfault
@Hungry Joe: I agree. It seems to me the proper response to that is “what the hell is wrong with you people.”
NotMax
@Baud
We will, we will, rocket
;)
different-church-lady
They could ask him why he’s a fascist, but instead they ask him about pudding.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: An Internet classic.
Baud
BC, did you take that screenshot? Ron looks quite weird in a monstrous sort of way. It’s like his true soul is trying to break free of its human host.
Redshift
The thing I find kind of hilarious is these GOP oligarchs abandoning DeSatan on polling at a point when it’s still probably all name recognition. It may week be the only reason he was doing better earlier is because TFG wasn’t leaving Mar-a-Lago and didn’t look like a real candidate (that is, what really happened is mainly TFG’s numbers went up.)
Warblewarble
Too good to miss,De stenches “TOP GOV” video where he struts around in a flying suit cosplaying a tough jaw jutting Mussolini, but comes across a glass jawed george bush. He can be emperor for life in Fuck You I’ve Got Mine Floriduh. Man is a graceless bumbling no hoper . Time for the media and oligarchs to move on to the next great white hope.
lowtechcyclist
All this couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hungry Joe:
This.
Baud
And this right here is why Ron is not prepared to be the GOP standard bearer.
ETA: Trump would have lied, and when the video surfaced, would have kept on lying.
Hungry Joe
@Josie: I m not trying to one-up you, but …
Who among us hasn’t, late at night, discovered some fried chicken in the fridge and snarfed down a couple of pieces while standing over the sink? (Well, the current governor of Florida, I guess. But is he really “among us”?)
Omnes Omnibus
@Doc Sardonic: Chocolate pudding. Obvs.
WaterGirl
If you’re explaining, you’re losing!
hahahahaha
AWOL
So he did do German Scheisse films before moving to Disneylandia to rule alligators.
Benw
What if I really DON’T want to text Jesse?
WaterGirl
@Baud:
rotating tag?
Cameron
@different-church-lady: He’s the Pudding Pinochet!
Delk
Ron three finger and Marge three toe…it would be irresponsible to speculate. (or vomit 🤮)
WaterGirl
@Josie: @Hungry Joe: Right!
“What would you have done, tried to lick it out of the cup?”
oatler
https://www.joemygod.com/2023/03/desantis-hires-fan-of-nick-fuentes-as-speechwriter/
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: He would have to be a normal human to think of that. As we used to say about Romney, he needs an upgrade.
Josie
@Hungry Joe:
I am actually laughing out loud at that. Startled the sleeping corgi.
Baud
This asshole’s “Please clap” moment can’t come soon enough.
West of the Rockies
@OzarkHillbilly:
I agree. There are multiple reasons to dislike the man. The pudding thing is sort of like getting caught picking his nose. Gross, but we’ve all done it or something akin. But he is vile in so many more substantial ways.
But if he keeps letting Trump take his lunch cupcake, shoving him into a wall, and calling him Buttface, his constituency will dwindle.
There go two miscreants
Or Dave Barry’s* line about “a nutricious but easy to prepare meal of peanut butter gouged out of the jar with a forefinger.”
*IIRC
Cameron
The downside is that the more he’s mocked nationally, the more he’ll take it out on the residents of Florida. Well, those residents who his base wants him to beat up, anyway.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: If it is one of those little plastic cups, you can just squeeze it into your mouth. No muss, no fuss.
pat
Pudd’n boots. It took a minute for that to register and then I lol’d!! Well done.
Alison Rose
Yeah, my thoughts too. Also…this would be a really fucking weird thing to make up about a person to try to embarrass or discredit them or something. Especially a Republican. It’s not like the allegation is that he ate Dijon mustard with a demitasse spoon or something equally liberal and horrifying.
kalakal
I’m waiting for the drinking coffee with a fork story to emerge.
brendancalling
Wait til they find out how he wipes his ass.
tobie
Far be it from me to judge finger eating etiquette (nah!), but why in hell would you need 3 fingers to eat pudding from a plastic cup. I can imagine one finger to circle the sides, maybe two to pick up more stuff, but three? Man he was scarfing it like a pig. I guess a feed bag wasn’t available.
Cameron
Trump = grab ’em by the pussy
DeSantis = shove three fingers in a pudding cup
West of the Rockies
@danielx:
Or Arkansas. Oh, oh, Oklahoma! Oh, and North Dakota. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus:
I am a homemade pudding
girlsnob and I would never each store-bought pudding out of cup, so I was only guessing what the cup would be like.So the pudding cups are flexible? Who knew? Then you only need to lick what’s left on the sides fo the cup!
Geminid
DeSantis might have done better to wait until 2028. But I think he’s too far in to bail on next year’s race, even though he looks like he’s not really ready and he might even know that.
I thought DeSantis’s early support was founded on a negative: elites believe Teump will lose and drag other Republicans down with him. They hoped that DeSantis was someone who could avert that, and they thought he was the only one.
DeSantis’s clunky rollout is making elites doubt his campaign skills. I think there is another unanswered question about him, because he is centering cultural/social issues so much: can these themes stand up in a general election, or will they fall flat? Personally, I don’t think they’ll move most voters.
Alison Rose
@tobie: You’d think only TFG would need three, since he does have those tiny dainty hands.
kalakal
He doesn’t remember doing it because he normally uses 4 fingers. 3 would be out of character
WaterGirl
@Cameron: Is that what they’re calling it now?
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: Yeah, they’re thin plastic, the kind you could crush in your hand if it’s empty. So you could definitely squeeze it while it’s full.
Cameron
@WaterGirl: I’ll have to ask him next time he’s down my way.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Pliable, as opposed to flexible.
Another Scott
TheBaffler:
A 27 year old obviously didn’t run the place. But his actions and what he did and didn’t do there matter. And it matters how he paints the history now.
People shouldn’t let him whitewash his past. People need to believe their own lying eyes…
Cheers,
Scott.
Shalimar
Why would you need more than 2 fingers to eat pudding? how big was this cup?
West of the Rockies
@Cameron:
Ha!
WaterGirl
@NotMax: The dictionary has them as synonyms!
West of the Rockies
@Delk:
I hesitate to ask. What does MTG do with her gnarly toes? (And you know they are jacked up.)
Betsy
@Kay: That man has EYE SHADOW on. It’s not subtle either. It’s full contouring in multiple shades. I don’t have a problem with it, but I mean, trans alert!
I do think the used-car-salesman/ televangelist haircut is both revolting and hilarious.
He’s a two-bit stock character from an H.L. Mencken essay.
schrodingers_cat
@Betsy: Not everyone has model good looks like Obama! The not so beautiful need representation too.//
West of the Rockies
@Baud:
Where have you gone, Rick DeSantio, the nation turns its lonely ass on you…
Jinchi
Just scrolling through these comments, you can see why questions like this are far deadlier to the DeSantis campaign than literally pointing out that the guy is a fascist.
It’s a weird anecdote that’s loaded with double entendres and a basis for a visceral feeling that the guy is just gross. Like Santorum getting his name defined in the urban dictionary. It’s not even close to the worst thing the guy has done but it makes him repulsive in a way the hard facts never will.
kalakal
@Betsy:
He always reminds me of the Clarence Beeks character in the film Trading Places.
schrodingers_cat
BTW Indian Twittter is having fun with India’s Hitler wannabe by dubbing his voice to Hitler’s speech.
Betsy
@kalakal: I’ll have to see that again (if I ever did).
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Pfeh. Ivory towerism.
Let ’em attempt twisting one instead of pinching it.
;)
Sure Lurkalot
The guy is so uncomfortable and awkward in his own skin it hurts to watch. Or delightful.
Another Scott
@kalakal: There’s video.
YouTube (3:16) – starts at 1:05.
Cheers,
Scott.
Spanky
@Betsy: This is what aliens get when they buy their human skin suits on the cheap.
Spanky
@Sure Lurkalot:
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Sister Golden Bear
In fairness, DeSatan is used to using his fingers to gnaw on the bones of dead trans kids.
On a more serious note, DeSatan just hired a fanboy of white nationalist virgin Nick Fuentes to be his speechwriter. Can you say Nazi-adjacent, boys and girls?
NotMax
@Sure Lurkalot
(With apologies to Mark Twain.)
Pudd’nhead Shrillson.
schrodingers_cat
How did Florida go from purple to deep red? Has Florida’s demography changed?
Kelly
Yeah he missed a chance lighten up his image with a bit of humor. I like pudding or applesauce for a snack when out hiking. I’ve eaten them with my fingers lots of times. It’s the best way to get the last tiny bit.
gVOR08
Pudd’n Boot is perfect. But I’ll continue to use DeUseless with audiences not addicted to the news enough to know about the pudding thing.
zhena gogolia
Oh, if we let TFG win in 2024, he’ll be running again in 2028, Putler-style. There’ll be no “sidestepping” him.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
Mad Dogs and Floridians Go Out in the Noonday Sun.
//
Scott P.
https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1639054445475672066
Frankensteinbeck
In so much of life, the mistake is less important than how you handle it. How DeSantis is handling this makes him look weak. Because he is. As badly wounded a candidate as Trump is, DeSantis is never going to be able to take him down.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: How many does he use to cross himself? (Old Believer joke)
Gretchen
@Doc Sardonic: thank you for « dollar store Jackie O ». She sees herself swanning around the White House.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: Agreed. Trump will eat him for breakfast. DeSantis is this cycle’s Christie.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
Anyone tracking the Brink’s trucks?
//
Ruckus
@Kay:
the cure is sort of worse because it’s so fake
What isn’t fake about deathsanta?
He’s got nothing on a 50 lb sack of flour in the way of charm, intelligence. class, and the flour is actually far more useful. His entire persona is fake, makes him look even less human, if that’s possible. He’s doing everything he can to prove that he’s incapable. Of anything whatsoever – positive. So he’s the preverbal rethuglican politician.
Bill Arnold
@Shalimar:
That’s what increases the odds that this is an info-op. At least on my hand, three fingers is the size of a serving spoon, and two fingers are a tablespoon. So either RonD has small fingers, or he used two(or one) and somebody is trying to get him to deny three. (or it didn’t happen, but probably it did.) If the info-leak was an op (it was), respect for the perpetrator, even if they are on team DJT. Because funny.
Baud
True confessions: I eat cereal with my hands.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: As long as he makes Trump sick before the general.
Tony Jay
All he had to do was perk up, nod enthusiastically and ask Morgan if he had any puddings on him. Pissyface Piers is such a cringing suck-up he’d have happily played along and suddenly this embarrassing exposé becomes a back-slappingly funny anecdote that both humanises and provides valuable guy-creds for the fascist boot-fetishist.
But he couldn’t do it. Too slow. Too humourless. Too self conscious. So he just told the obvious lie, badly.
Ron DeSantis? More like Ron De Santos.
different-church-lady
@Bill Arnold:
Remember when we tricked the president of the United States into proving he could drink a glass of water? Good times, good times…
Cameron
@NotMax: One could conflate Twain and Stephen King: Pudd’nhead Stillson
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@OzarkHillbilly:
Exactly, and I kind of get it. If the man was going at full speed that day without meals, he was likely famished and solved the problem of having no spoon.
Frankly, it normalizes him in my book a bit because that is such a “me” move that doesn’t cultivate a certain demeanor and image.
topclimber
@gVOR08: Rhonda Stalin anyone ?
different-church-lady
@Ruckus:
Yeah, so, Floridians love that sort of thing or something?
Warblewarble
Tacky O, works as well.
Ruckus
@brendancalling:
Or that he doesn’t.
NotMax
OT.
Got a flyer of Easter specials from the local Costco.
Includes kim chee and Kalua pork. That bunny sure do get around.
:)
Ruckus
@tobie:
Nah. Three fingers was all he could get in that little cup of pudding that the airlines give you.
different-church-lady
@Sister Golden Bear:
Adjacent? It fuckin’ Nazi convergent.
Chris Johnson
I thought it was three in the pink and ONE in the chocolate pudding. No accounting for tastes…
sdhays
@kalakal: LOL. A real journalist would have followed up with, “So, how do you typically eat chocolate pudding, and how often?”
Ruckus
@Shalimar:
Just big enough to get 3 fingers in.
(I used to fly a lot. A LOT. Way, way more than I ever thought I’d want to. And I was right.)
Bill Arnold
@OzarkHillbilly:
There are millions of Americans for whom it is disqualifying.
I mean, people have negative feelings about others who use the wrong toilet paper orientation.
Ruckus
@Jinchi:
This.
We all – or at least the vast majority of us have done things with food (or food like products) to get them in our mouths at least once in our lives, like when we were infants, that we will likely never admit to even remembering, because food/hunger/desire. We likely didn’t do it on an airplane but still, we’ve been there.
Another Scott
@Bill Arnold: It’s good they mentioned cats and toddlers – under really does work in those cases. Otherwise, only barbarians think that under is the preferred orientation.
Cheers,
Scott.
sdhays
@zhena gogolia: Heck, when Trump loses in 2024, he may still be the one to beat in 2028.
Mike in NC
It appears that Florida has an inexhaustible supply of far-right billionaires willing to bankroll sleazy assholes like DeSantis, Marco Rubio, and Rick Scott. Another reason to stay as far away as possible.
Mai Naem mobile
@Doc Sardonic: i saw a pic of Casey with what I call long wedding gloves and,yes, a Jackie O dress. Honestly, my first thought was who wears that in Florida in the heat? It looks stupid.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: I’m not sure Florida has gone deep red. It’s legislature is deep red but that’s due to gerrymandering. Over the last decade, most of the state and Presidential races have been within 4 points, and some within 1.
DeSantis’s 10 point win last year definitely makes Florida seem red. The very large disparity between DeSantis’s and Crist’s funding may have accounted for for 2 or 3 points of that 10; maybe this can make that big a difference there. But politically, Florida is terra incognita to me.
The trend in Florida sure looks red though. I guess the question is: will the trend continue in a straight line or is will it flatten out? Next year’s Presidential and Congressional races will tell us something about this.
SFAW
@Baud:
Boy, I almost had a heart attack when I misread that as “with my pants.”
Mo MacArbie
Well, we know the man ate his meat, even if he doesn’t need no education.
Mai Naem mobile
@sdhays: by 2028 there’ll be other governors and senators who’ll be more seasoned and ready to go. I am surprised people don’t talk more about Iowa governor Kim Reynolds. Also, I wouldn’t count out former AZ governor Doug Ducey. If AZ turns back red/purple and TFG is out of the picture, Ducey could blame Mark Kelly’s and Katie Hobbs’ wins on TFG.
patrick II
@Hungry Joe:
Your nym seems appropriate.
different-church-lady
@Bill Arnold:
Death to unders, if you ask me.
different-church-lady
@SFAW:
That’s nuts. Pants taste better with pancakes and maple syrup.
different-church-lady
@sdhays:
I’d beat him daily until 2028 if it were allowed.
Betty
@Kelly: He was on a private plane. It’s hard to believe there was no spoon available
trollhattan
“I like pudding with thigh food.”
Ruckus
@Jinchi:
Most of us wouldn’t have a clue about the daily duties of being a governor. Sure we might be capable to do the job, but really who knows a lot about the day to day duties of jobs they’ve never done?
But eating? Or even just existing. I used to own a business in a part of town where people sometimes/all the time slept and other things, in public. Humanity doesn’t need a lot to exist, but it is a hell of a lot easier and nicer when many of those things do exist. But on a plane there is someone to fetch you a plastic spoon to eat your pudding.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Yikes! Just terrible. Better to own up to being a sourpuss. That can work!
WaterGirl
@Gretchen: I’m pretty sure that Dollar Store Jackie O. was a gift from a Betty Cracker post.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Another Dave Barry recipe was “Cheese Wiz squirted directly into the mouth”.
Geminid
@Mai Naem mobile: There are a lot of good Republican prospects for 2028. Brian Kemp looks strongest to me right now.
But that is a long way away. I can think of only a couple real prospects for next year, maybe just one, besides Trump and DeSantis- if DeSantis is in fact a real prospect..
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Tony Jay: Republicans don’t do self-deprecating humor. I doubt anybody could even successfully explain the concept to them.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Pulled it off Google images. There were a bunch with that chyron, and I picked the one where he looked weirdest. I’ve got an agenda! ;-)
@WaterGirl: That actually happened to me once (except it was flan rather than pudding), and I made a crude utensil with the peel-off foil top. I mean, it was FLAN!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
And here I thought you were fair and balanced.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@schrodingers_cat:
A friend of mine claims that it’s a result of the combination of the die-off of the original cohort of NY/NE snowbirds, along with a massive influx of mid-south rednecks and all of the worst people from the Midwest.
He grew up there, maintained a home there throughout his navy career. Says that it was always funky and fun in the past, but is now unrecognizable to the point where he’s definitely moving his wife and kids away when his current DOD contractor position expires.
Carl Hiassen never anticipated this.
StringOnAStick
Argh, husband and I have RSV. Sickest we’ve been in maybe a decade.
Baud
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
So why isn’t the Midwest improving?
Baud
@StringOnAStick:
More time to juice!
Feel better.
wonkie
The pudding story is the stupid kind of shit the media used to use to degrade Democrats. Obama likes tasty salads! The only way it reflects on DiSantis is in his failure to lean in on it. Trump and many other thuggish Republicans understand that to appeal to the R base–which means appealing to people who enjoy the pleasures of vicarious bullying–one must never apologize and never explain. He should have laughed and said, “It was good pudding!” Maybe he is a bad campaigner. I hope so because I think he is worse than TRump and possibly more electable with the general population.
Kelly
@StringOnAStick: You have my sympathy. I currently have a cold. Not too bad but I miss the use of my nose.
Tony Jay
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Nothing self-deprecating about loving the pudding and being demonstratively proud that you’re so manly and down-to-earth that you don’t need to mess around with one of those fancy-dancy ‘spoons’ like some coastal elite.
It could have been a ‘thing’. Owning his pudding peccadilloes could have been Ronda’s pussy-grabbing moment. Cross-platform commercial opportunities for selling “He Can Use Three Fingers On My Pudding!” T-shirts and caps with “Chocolate ✔️ Mouth ✔️ Fingers ✔️“ logos. A nice little feud with Warner Bros over misuse of Harley Quinn’s image and catchphrase. Coming out to rapturous crowds all chanting “Did ya like your pudding, Ron?” and answering “You’re damned right I did! But I’m ready for the main course!”
But he fluffed it. So sad.
StringOnAStick
@Kelly: Fever is a serious drag. Yesterday would have been my 50th ski day this year, all of it backcountry and mostly powder, but too sick.
The Lodger
@Bill Arnold: Beards, not mullets!
Baud
@The Lodger:
Por qué no los dos?
Josie
@Geminid:
Who is, in your opinion, the one real prospect besides Trump and/or DeSantis? I’m very curious to hear your ideas.
No One You Know
@Geminid: if DeSantis does have genuine deficits, for whatever reason, in social skills or cultural skills, his focus makes perfect sense: he’s trying to create a space where he belongs. And he doesn’t know, or maybe cannot learn, that a culturally competent person doesn’t have to demonize and bully to do that.
The Lodger
@Baud: Can’t do both with the same roll at the same time. There’s a no bell prize (or a front page post) for anyone who proves me wrong.
Anyway
@Baud:
Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois … maybe Wisconsin (fingers crossed) flirted with disaster but huge improvement last November. Cautiously optimistic about the Great Lake states, Ohio is a goner though.
Anyway
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Also maybe recent Latino immigrants are more conservative — Venezuelans, for example.
Steeplejack
@Tony Jay:
Pudding moment.
Geminid
@Josie: Here I am just speaking to the nomination, not the general election: I think Mike Pompeo has the elements of a strong candidate. Pompeo says he won’t make up his mind for a “few” months, but I’m pretty sure he’s running.
Pompeo was the Kochs’ “Blue Eyed Boy.” They fostered both his business and then his Congressional careers. So he’s got good access to donors, I believe.
And Pompeo has made a good name among conservative evangelicals. He laid some of the groundwork for this when he was Secretary of State, and he has been wooing them since.
Pompeo has been preparing for this campaign a couple years now, just in a low key way. It’s hard to predict how regular Republican voters will respond to Pompeo and his message. Thematically, I think he’ll basically run in the “tough and steady Daddy” lane. I think Pompeo will be better prepared than DeSantis, and I don’t think he is intimidated by Trump either.
Tony Jay
@Steeplejack:
That was a very satisfying Twitter thread.
Can’t help thinking there’s a “Three fingers/One cup” joke out there waiting to be made.
Bupalos
Who cares what hairball the GQP horks up? Does it really matter?
Citizen Alan
@Kay:
What, like this?
Citizen Alan
@Baud: No, Ronny Three-Fingers. To go along with Donny Doll-Hands.
RaflW
Late to this, but as I said in a thread a couple days ago when his poll drop was reported, that he’d go even more nuts anti-gay. And indeed, he has.
I’m keenly aware that the GOP is attacking trans rights in dozens of states, and pushing related anti-LGB and Q measures. But I think the anti-gay stuff is actually some part of his fall in favorability. Trans rights are very much in the crosshairs, and that has to be resisted and countered.
But going broadly anti-LGBTQ really only pleases a narrow base. And that base already is predisposed to Trump. Yes the orange-hued vulgarian is opposed to same-sex marriage and other broad LGBTQ rights. But to my recollection it was just the necessary noises to meet his base. It’s not central to his campaign like calling immigrants ‘rapists’ is, for example.
Anyway, rambling along to a point, here: As national voters get to know dullard Ron, finding out that he actually seems to hate gay and lesbian people isn’t a plus. 61% of Americans tell Pew that marriage equality is fine with them!
Captain C
@Baud: Is he now “Pudding Shocker Ron”?
Gvg
@schrodingers_cat: it hasn’t. Gerrymandering is fixing the state elections but the margins are mostly not that big. Now we did have some fall off due to voter intimidation but, we’ll look at how we vote on proposed state referendums. We voted to restore former convicts voting rights. Then the republican elected officials just refused to do it. Because of gerrymandering they don’t lose their seats. This has been going on for awhile, like a couple of decades, especially on how the voters want schools funded and handled. We vote for laws but the gop will not implement.
soapdish
Ronnie Three Fingers!
WaterGirl
@StringOnAStick: Oh, no!
yellowdog
@schrodingers_cat: I believe there is a reason why nobody accused E&S, the company that provides election equipment to FL, of changing the votes in Biden’s favor. They are big GOP contributors and their results CANNOT BE INDEPENDENTLY AUDITED.
Paul in KY
@Doc Sardonic: A beer bong.