Posted originally on the CTH on December 17, 2022 | Sundance 

As soon as this information gets mainstream, watch for an entire tribe of ‘conservative’ pundits to suddenly find advocacy for the benefit of billionaires controlling politicians. Indeed, there will likely be a benefit to bookmarking this post.

Against the backdrop of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis receiving 94% of his campaign support from multinational corporations, billionaires and Wall Street tycoons, there has been a debate about whether DeSantis would be a purchased GOP nominee for the presidency in 2024.

Based on current available evidence, the announcement of a 2024 presidential bid is a mere formality, likely to surface later in 2023, as all the background datapoints reflect the strategic and financial team behind Ron DeSantis have been positioning an announcement since late 2021.   One visible datapoint has been his campaign office, specifically his then spokesperson Christina Pushaw, reaching out to a group of Florida influencers and organizing a meeting on January 6, 2022.

By the late spring of 2022 the branding and management of the pending Ron DeSantis presidential bid was strongly underway, and by early August 2022, not coincidentally timed with the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, after an unusual five days in a bunker, a new national campaign team was announced and launched.  Everything from that national image launch has been carefully managed, organized and constructed.

With the Florida legislature set to change the law permitting DeSantis to run and remain as governor; and with the intentionally elevated profile and controlled national branding in place; the office of the Florida governor has transformed from a state executive focus to a launch vehicle for higher office.  State policies and office advocacy now run through the priority prism of national politics, as the announcement of the DeSantis book launch is simultaneously positioned.

All of the datapoints flow in one direction, Desantis seeking the 2024 GOP nomination.  None of the carefully managed policy points are contradictory to a national intention. However, the original question about who is controlling Ron DeSantis remains unanswered.   It is with this specific outlook in mind that we can now find Governor Ron DeSantis’s perspective on donor money influencing politics by looking at how he answered this exact question in March 2014.

In March 2014 a young man asked exactly this question.  During a Q&A session at Embry-Riddle University, then U.S.Congressman Ron DeSantis, representing Florida’s 6th District, was asked about money influencing politics.   Within his answer we can gain an understanding of why 94% of Ron DeSantis donations are coming from the billionaire influence class.

Video prompted to 00:49:11 of the session, where Ron DeSantis says he feels limited campaign contributions are a problem.  Congressman DeSantis says that billionaires should be permitted to fully fund political candidates, without limits, as long as the donations are fully transparent.

Beyond the view of billionaires being permitted to fund candidates for office, pay particular attention to the example that DeSantis uses regarding online sales taxes and his opposition to it.   Within that specific answer you are about to see a major contradiction, that tells us something significant.  WATCH:

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The K-Street lobbyists and campaign donors DeSantis is describing in the online tax example, are the Club for Growth types who wanted states to deliver national equality on the issue of state collection of online sales taxes.

Apparently, in 2014 Congressman DeSantis was willing to take the C4G donor money and yet not support the online sales tax that would hurt Florida consumers.

However, very quietly in April of 2021, Florida Governor DeSantis signed a law requiring all online businesses outside Florida to charge Florida sales taxes on products ordered by Florida residents.  The online tax for Florida residents was projected to net an additional $1 billion in revenue for the state.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis very quietly and without much fanfare signed a new online sales tax bill into law Monday, requiring out-of-state retailers to collect and remit sales taxes.

[…] Under the law, “marketplace providers” that aren’t located in Florida will be required to remit sales taxes “when delivering tangible personal property” to consumers. (read more)

As you can see from the bigger picture issue of billionaires purchasing politicians, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis felt massive wealthy interests should be permitted to fund politicians.  This is in line with his 2022 position of massive donations from billionaires, hedge fund managers, multinational corporations and Wall Street flowing into his campaign and Political Action Committee coffers.

Simultaneous with this 2022 increase in billionaire funding, DeSantis reversed his 2014 position on online sales tax collection for Florida residents, putting himself in direct alignment with Club 4 Growth and other K-Street lobbying groups he said would not influence his policy.  DeSantis received $2,000,000.00 from Club 4 Growth.

Add in the endorsement of Paul Ryan (link), and Jeb Bush (link), and the Wall Street republicanism reemerges as the DeSantis platform.