Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 17, 2022 | Sundance

The ‘cut to the chase‘ aspect of whether Ron DeSantis is planning to run for the GOP nomination in 2024 is made clear when you realize just how much money the Florida governor has amassed.  A standing total exceeding $200 million.

That $200 million is not only a staggering amount far beyond the need for his virtually certain governor’s victory, but also the largest amount of campaign money ever assembled by a governor in the history of politics {citation}. Meg Whitman, California ($176 million), and Jay Pritzker, Illinois ($176 million), were both multi-millionaires and funded the majority of their war chest.  Almost all (96%) of DeSantis’ money is coming from multinational corporations, hedge funds, Wall Street firms and billionaires {citation}.

For those who are unfamiliar with the strategies of political funding, there is a timing that also highlights the intent.  A conspicuously aligned timing that coincides with the Trump raid on Mar-a-Lago.  Campaign finance reports are required and filled out quarterly.  DeSantis had a massive war chest assembled through August 5th.

That finance revelation was immediately before the August 8th raid, before the week in the bunker, and before DeSantis reemerged August 14th with a new national branding team and communication change.

DeSantis took in even more billionaire donor checks with the national kick-off.

Everybody familiar with politics knows what that level of preparation and strategy means.  DeSantis wasn’t amassing money of that scale, and simultaneously launching a new national branding campaign, for a state reelection bid.  He was/is preparing for a 2024 presidential run.  The only question was whether DeSantis had direct knowledge of the August 8th raid on Trump in advance, or whether he was just told not to ask questions and follow the advice of his new GOPe team.  The latter is more likely.

That said, the best laid plans of mice and men were disrupted by the MAGA response to the Trump raid.  As noted in the article shared by President Trump today, the professional republican donor class had -not accidentally- done a great job using their piranhas to nibble away at Trump’s support prior to the August 8th raid.  However, the raid rallied the base of MAGA back to defend Donald Trump.

By the time DeSantis came out of his pre-planned bunker phase (Aug 8th through Aug 14th) the support for Donald Trump had surged again.  The professionally republican handlers launched the national DeSantis campaign into indefatigable pro-Trump headwinds.  DeSantis Inc stuck to the plan, but the benefit they anticipated was not there.

Unfortunately for DeSantis there’s no good way to retreat from the 2024 strategy his handlers and donors have mapped out.  They have pushed him ‘all-in.’ I don’t think it’s possible for DeSantis Inc to back-down after accepting all that GOPe money, unless there is a way for them to return or redirect it.

The article President Trump shared today is a good contextual article describing the accuracy of the Trump -v- DeSantis landscape as it existed on August 29th, the date it was written.

One of the citations in the article points to John Thomas who was prepared with a pro-DeSantis PAC if the republican plan against Trump had succeeded.

As noted, the plan didn’t succeed, and with the outcome of the fulcrum event, the Mar-a-Lago raid, not having the desired effect, Thomas has now abandoned the idea of using the PAC to advance DeSantis.

(Business Insider) – […] But at least one GOP operative — John Thomas, founder and president of the political advertising and strategy group Thomas Partners Strategies — thinks it’s better for DeSantis to wait than to try to challenge Trump in 2024. 

“I wouldn’t advise him to go head to head with Trump,” Thomas told Insider. “It’s not gonna go well for DeSantis.” 

Until recently, Thomas was independently readying a political action committee to support DeSantis running for president.

But now he predicts DeSantis would be unsuccessful if he tried to challenge Trump. If DeSantis were to run, he said, he wouldn’t have to just compete with Trump’s name recognition and donor network. DeSantis would also risk seeing what would happen if Trump’s followers suddenly viewed him as anti-Trump.

Right now, DeSantis is seen as not just pro-Trump but as being Trump 2.0, Thomas said. To run against Trump, he said, DeSantis would have to convince Trump’s core electorate to break away from him.

“Right now he can have his cake and eat it too,” he said. “He can be Trumpy and supportive. But he would have to argue that he’s better, or Trump is bad. And that is a fault line that is probably a bridge too far for the Republican electorate in 2024.” (read more)