Twas a shit show 🙂

….

from JC

Last night saw the long-advertised debate between Republican presidential candidate and standout Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and some guy named Gavin (if that’s his real name) Newsom. Governor DeSantis came out strong and wasn’t taking any bull-S. Literally. At one point, he even confronted Newsom with a stinky poop map of San Fransisco:

https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1730431474359255079?

Like a magician unveiling the missing Ace of Spades, Governor DeSantis whipped out a map from a website that reports sightings of human feces in San Francisco. Gross! But oddly, like a homeless drug addict who just found a half-full two-liter bottle of cherry Ripple, Newsom uncontrollably chortled in weird, inappropriate ways while DeSantis was pointing out “features” on the disgusting sewage map. Worse, even when he wasn’t chuckling maniacally, the California Governor was grinning wider and more unnervingly than an over-caffeinated chimpanzee indulging in alternating bouts of wild self-gratification and feces flinging.

The result was politically devastating for Governor Newsom, who is either blithely unaware or perhaps unexpectedly overjoyed that his political future was incinerated faster than a Los Angeles courthouse after a mostly-peaceful BLM protest. (Or BM protest, you decide.)

In this next clip, behold DeSantis flaying Gavin alive — using a dull flaying knife — over basic dinner-table economic issues. It was Newsom’s own fault; he set DeSantis up perfectly by advancing the buffoonish claim that California offers an inviting, lower tax environment for “working families and the working poor.” DeSantis melted him faster than a plastic toy soldier dissolving in the microwav

https://twitter.com/SKMorefield/status/1730413207666167899?

Outback founder and conservative radio host Clay Travis (who leans DeSantis in the primary), originally thought DeSantis should never have taken the debate, but afterwards called it “a massacre.”

Claiming the 2023 “Understatement of the Year” award, National Review’s headline bluntly concluded that Gavin Newsom “Is Not Ready for Prime Time”:


Maybe most telling of all, when I surveyed corporate media headlines this morning, they all declared the debate to be an uninteresting and politically insignificant “tie,” allowing that, if perhaps DeSantis did win by a nose, it was only because conservative host Sean Hannity tipped the scales. For example, Politico ran its story headlined, “It was Hannity and DeSantis v. Newsom in messy Fox debate.”

Newsom must be regretting asking for this debate. His performance was so frightful it even begs the theory that he purposely took a dive to hurt President Trump. It’s a tempting notion but fails under analysis: Newsom is not a disposable foil. He has ambitions. He’s secretly running for the super-delegates’ presidential vote at the democrat convention. But this underwhelming half-effort may just have scotched the California governor’s nascent crypto-nomination.

Or whatever you want to call it.

It’s still early, but one wonders whether Newsom might have completely ended his political career last night. It seems almost certain to end his presidential ambition, at least. Leftists expected their Golden Boy and recall survivor Newsom to wipe the floor with Ron DeSantis. But — to liberals — if he can’t “even” beat DeSantis, how could he possibly survive against Trump?