Connect with us

Published

on

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the early front-runner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, but lawmakers and strategists warn this can sometimes be the “death knell” for a candidate, pointing to other early presidential front-runners who flamed out despite high expectations. 

Experts say there are a variety of lessons for DeSantis to learn from those early front-runners who failed to live up to potential, such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who was too cautious and suffered from a perceived lack of energy in 2016, or former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) who got bogged down in a mudslinging match in Iowa.

Some pundits are warning DeSantis could peak too soon, as former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker did before the 2016 Republican presidential primary.  

Or they warn he could make the mistake of waiting until the Florida primary to fully deploy his effort and resources, as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani did in 2008 GOP primary — at which point Giuliani fell too far behind his rivals to catch up.   Close Thank you for signing up!

Subscribe to more newsletters here The latest in politics and policy. Direct to your inbox. Sign up for the 12:30 Report newsletter Subscribe

“People flame out. It’s too early to know who’s actually going to be in contention, but he’s certainly had a successful election and he’s a strong candidate from a big, important state, so you can’t discount him,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said of DeSantis, who won reelection in November with 59 percent of the vote.  

Many Republicans see DeSantis as their best shot to win the 2024 presidential election, but Cornyn quipped that being early the front-runner means “you’re the main spear-catcher” as rivals train their hostile fire at the leader of the pack.  

Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist, said being the front-runner was “the death knell to people like Jeb Bush.” 

He said he thinks the political circumstances surrounding DeSantis are different compared to Bush but added: “Right now in this political environment, nothing would surprise me.”

David Paleologos, the director of the political research center at Suffolk University, who conducted a poll last month showing that 61 percent of GOP and GOP-leaning voters prefer DeSantis over former President Trump, said the Florida governor faces an array of potential pitfalls if he runs for president.  

“The second-tier candidates have an incentive to make their No. 1 target DeSantis because they know the alt-Trump candidate in the Republican primary is the better and stronger choice in the general election,” he said. 

He said early presidential front-runners in past elections have made the mistake of sitting on their lead in the polls and not competing aggressively enough in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary — likening it to a football team that plays a “prevent defense” in the final minutes of the game to protect its lead against big plays but winds up giving its opponent too soft a cushion.

“What happens is the candidates take a defensive posture. It’s like if you’re leading in a football game, your strategy is vastly different than if you’re trailing,” he said, adding that the team that’s playing from behind will be more aggressive, creative and scrappy.

“Pollsters for people who are the front-runners are advising accordingly, saying you don’t need to engage, you don’t need to respond, you don’t need to give any oxygen to the second-tier candidate,” he said, warning that over time that strategy can let an opponent build up too much momentum.  

Strategists say DeSantis could learn from various early front-runners who flamed out early in the past.   Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, 2015-2016 

Bush announced in July of 2015 that he had raised more than $114 million for his campaign and an affiliated super PAC, far more than any of his Republican presidential rivals. 

An NBC-Wall Street Journal poll from the summer of 2015 showed him at the front of the pack with 22 percent support among GOP primary voters, followed by Walker at 17 percent and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 14 percent.  

Trump had the backing of a meager 1 percent of Republican primary voters polled — tying him at the time with Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.).

Bush, however, went on to win only 2.8 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses, 11 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary and 7.8 percent of the vote in the South Carolina primary.  

One of the low points of the campaign came in New Hampshire, where he implored a sleepy audience to “please clap.” Another came when Trump mocked him at a debate for steadily losing public support and getting positioned farther and farther away from the center of the debate stage.

“I just think he was cautious. I think he was being overly defensive and cautious,” Paleologos said of Bush. “His skillset and the age of his advisers was much more seasoned and discounted the potential for someone else to come in and steal the nomination away.”  Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, 2015 

Doug Schoen, a political consultant who advised former President Clinton and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2020 presidential campaign, warned in an op-ed for The Hill last month that DeSantis needs to be wary of the peril of peaking too soon.  

Schoen wrote that DeSantis needs to worry about a “worsening affordability crisis” in Florida driven by rising property insurance and energy costs and — like Walker was in 2016 — is untested on the national stage.  

Walker led the Republican pack of presidential hopefuls in Iowa in January of 2015, according to a Des Moines Register-Bloomberg Politics poll. 

A Monmouth University poll in July of 2015 showed him still leading the field in Iowa with 22 percent support. Trump was running in second place with 13 percent support in the same poll. 

But Walker would wind up dropping out of the race only a few months later after he failed to show any charisma or pizzazz in two debates and got tagged with a reputation of being boring.  

Walker also wound up committing a few painful gaffes, such as when he refused to talk about his views of evolution during a trip to London or say whether he thought then-President Obama was a Christian.  

O’Connell recalled, “Scott walked into a big round of donors and they were like, ‘This man just does not have the right temperament.’” 

He said big donors “are looking for chops and also looking for personality.”   New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 2007-2008 

A Gallup poll in February of 2007 showed Giuliani leading the Republican field with 40 percent support among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, easily outdistancing then-Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who had the support of 24 percent of Republican voters.  

Giuliani was still the national front-runner in November of 2007, but he adopted an unorthodox and ultimately unsuccessful strategy of keeping his powder dry until the Florida primary, where he hoped to rack up enough delegates to leap ahead of his rivals.  

The former New York politician was worried his abortion stance would be a liability with conservative voters and made only modest efforts to perform well in those early states.

By the time Florida held its primary on Jan. 29, 2008, Giuliani was no longer seen as the front-runner or even all that competitive. He finished in a distant third place with 14.7 percent of the vote — well behind McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.  

“When you look at who actually wins, six out of the last seven presidents were people who ‘couldn’t win,’” said Republican strategist Chip Saltsman.  

“We always have these inevitable conversations about inevitable front-runners a year or two years out, it’s just what we do. When you look at it, very few people who are ahead at the very beginning of the race actually run the tables.” 

Saltsman, who managed Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s 2008 Republican presidential campaign, said Giuliani didn’t go all-out in the early states because “he was pro-choice and didn’t think he could get through Iowa and South Carolina being the pro-choice candidate.” 

He said the Giuliani staff “were spending all their time in Florida in September, October, November and December and we were slugging it out in the frozen tundra of Iowa.”   Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, 2003-2004 

Probably the most memorable meltdown of a presidential front-runner was the implosion of Dean’s campaign in the 2004 Iowa caucuses, encapsulated by the infamous “Dean scream” after he finished in a disappointing third place.  

Dean was dominating the Democratic field only a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses with 23 percent support among registered voters nationwide, according to a CBS News poll conducted in mid-December 2003.  

He was well ahead of Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), who tied for second place with 10 percent support. Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt and Sens. John Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.) trailed in the singled digits with 6 percent, 4 percent and 2 percent, respectively.  

Dean still had a comfortable lead in early January 2004, two weeks before the Iowa contest, with 24 percent support among registered Democrats nationwide, while Clark had 20 percent support and Kerry had 11 percent support.  Biden, Obrador, Trudeau condemn riots in Brazil Police investigating detention of Wall Street Journal reporter in Phoenix

But Dean got bogged down in a nasty negative ad war with Gephardt, whom he viewed as his toughest competitor in Iowa, and both candidates wound up annihilating each other, creating a pathway for Kerry to win the caucuses and Edwards to finish in second.  

“They were really going all on TV against each other and we just came right up the middle and had so much momentum and Edwards followed in our wake,” said Democratic strategist Tad Devine, who was a senior adviser to Kerry’s campaign.  

“By the time we got to caucus night, Dean and Gephardt were gone,” he said. “Gephardt got out of the race and Dean gave a speech that essentially ended his candidacy.” 

Continue Reading

Entertainment

Kneecap release new single ahead of Wide Awake headline show

Published

on

By

Kneecap release new single ahead of Wide Awake headline show

Kneecap have released a new single ahead of their headline performance at London’s Wide Awake festival, just days after one of their members was charged with a terror offence.

The rap trio from Belfast shared a link to the song – The Recap – which opens with Sky News presenter Wilfred Frost reporting about the counter terrorism police investigation – on Instagram, linking to their WhatsApp channel.

Kneecap performing in Belfast last year. Pic: PA
Image:
Kneecap performing in Belfast last year. Pic: PA

Bandmembers Liam O hAnnaidh, Naoise O Caireallain and JJ O Dochartaigh, also thanked the 25,000 fans who had bought tickets for Friday night’s festival.

They also reference Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, with whom they’ve had previous run-ins, writing: “Kemi Badenoch you might wanna sit down for this one, if you’ve any seats left.”

Last year, Kneecap won a discrimination case against the UK government in Belfast High Court after former business secretary Ms Badenoch tried to refuse them a £14,250 funding award when she was a minister.

Ms Badenoch has called for Kneecap to be banned and suggested they should be dropped from the Glastonbury Festival line-up. Some other politicians have made the same demand.

The track mocks Badenoch’s attempts to block their arts funding and the Conservative Party’s election loss. It features DJ Mozey.

It comes after O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged over the alleged display of a Hezbollah flag at a gig at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, in November last year, the Metropolitan Police said on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the band held a surprise gig at the 100 Club on Oxford Street, where O hAnnaidh could be seen in videos on social media arriving on stage with tape covering his mouth.

He then joked about being careful about what he said, adding that he wanted to thank his lawyer, saying: “I need to thank my lawyer, he’s here tonight as well.”

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Stars talk about risks of speaking out

In video footage posted to YouTube, the band led the audience in a chant of “free Mo Chara” and joked about the police presence at the venue.

Police said they attended to manage visitors to the sold-out event.

The band said on X that the central London event sold out in 90 seconds, with 2,000 people on the waiting list.

O hAnnaidh, 27, is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 18 June.

Formed in 2017, the group are known for their provocative lyrics in both Irish and English and proved a critical hit in the 2024 semi-fictionalised band origin story movie Kneecap, starring actor Michael Fassbender.

Their best-known tracks include Get Your Brits Out, Better Way To Live, featuring Grian Chatten from Fontaines DC, and 3Cag.

Continue Reading

Sports

Sources: Isles hiring Darche from T.B. as new GM

Published

on

By

Sources: Isles hiring Darche from T.B. as new GM

The New York Islanders have the man to make the first pick in the draft. Sources told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan that the team is hiring Lightning assistant general manager Mathieu Darche as its new GM.

Darche played parts of nine seasons in the league with five different teams.

He has worked in Tampa Bay’s front office since 2019, helping the Lightning win two Stanley Cups. This will be the 48-year-old’s first general manager job.

Darche takes over for Lou Lamoriello, who was fired this offseason after seven seasons on the job. New York didn’t make the playoffs this season and hasn’t made it past the first round since 2020-21 — when the Islanders lost in the East semifinals to the Lightning.

The Isles lucked out in the draft lottery, jumping from 10th to the first selection. This will be the first time they’ll have the top pick since taking John Tavares in 2009.

Continue Reading

Sports

Nill, Cheveldayoff, Zito up for GM of Year Award

Published

on

By

Nill, Cheveldayoff, Zito up for GM of Year Award

Jim Nill, Kevin Cheveldayoff and Bill Zito have been named finalists for the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year Award, the NHL announced Friday.

The voting for the award was conducted between league general managers, a panel of executives and media members following the conclusion of the second round of the playoffs.

Nill, 67, has seen his Dallas Stars reach the Western Conference finals for the third straight season. He is a two-time winner of this award (2023, 2024) and five-time finalist

Cheveldayoff, 55, has spent the last 14 seasons with the Winnipeg Jets, who captured the Presidents’ Trophy this season. He also was a finalist for the GM of the Year Award in 2018.

Zito, 60, is looking to guide the Florida Panthers to their third consecutive trip to the Stanley Cup Final. He has been a finalist for the GM of the Year Award in three straight years and four of the last five.

Continue Reading

Trending