Today is the day that everyone was anticipating. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has officially entered the presidential race, and he did it by sticking his finger in the media’s eye.

When the news broke that an announcement was imminent, it also came out that DeSantis would be on Twitter Spaces with Elon Musk to make that announcement. Musk himself confirmed that Ron DeSantis would be on with him, doing a live Q & A session.

https://twitter.com/alx/status/1661086166811066382

Using Twitter Spaces, instead of having a rally, or just releasing a video (like Joe Biden), really is a great way to reach a younger demographic. Is that what we have to look forward to with a 44 year old candidate, versus the candidates who are in their 70’s or 80’s? Well, yes, but Ron DeSantis has exactly zero trust or love for the mainstream media (and they have had it out for him for a long while). How do you get around the media? Use social media to go straight to where the voters are.

I can tell you why DeSantis is going to use twitter. I was a GOP Chief of Staff in the House during the 117th Congress. After Youngkin won the VA Governorship different elements of his team spoke to us all to help us learn the lessons of his campaign. His comms people…

— Kenneth Monahan (@Foudroyant) May 23, 2023

They never held another press conference for the entire campaign. They won. If you are a Republican candidate, it makes absolutely no sense to try to communicate with the voters through the traditional media.

— Kenneth Monahan (@Foudroyant) May 23, 2023

Ron DeSantis’s website also went dark (save for an alligator image) before the announcement, and Casey DeSantis tweeted out a teaser video.

As Nina covered earlier today, the media meltdown has already been ratcheted to eleven. And joining in the cacaphony is none other than DeSantis’s primary opponent, Donald Trump.

It didn’t get any better from there, are Trump continued on to call Ron DeSantis “DeSanctus” in the next comment, and kept pounding away on the “disloyal” theme. I know where Donald Trump thinks he’s coming from on the “disloyalty” attack, but he hasn’t complained in this same fashion against Nikki Haley or Tim Scott or anyone else who has entered the Republican presidential primary. Trump’s reaction here indicates that he sees Ron DeSantis as an actual threat to him. And Donald Trump is not a sitting president running for re-election. This is one of the very few times in American history that a former president who isn’t currently holding the Oval Office is running again. Being a former president gives one front-runner status, not a coronation. With DeSantis entering the race, this has automatically become a two-man primary contest. In my opinion, everyone else running is simply auditioning for vice president for either Trump or DeSantis. The funding and the media space are going to focus pretty extensively on these two men, and with the media having already chosen sides (they want Trump over DeSantis, because Trump is much more lucrative for the media coverage), the other candidates will struggle to get more than a town hall on CNN.

I tell you what, the media really wants a cage fight between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. This is the headline from The Hill just after DeSantis filed the official paperwork. 

DeSantis files to run against Trump in 2024

The media will do everything they can to make this about Trump vs DeSantis.

But for all of DeSantis’s political strengths, there are still some clear challenges. Despite his rising star status among Republicans, much of the GOP’s conservative voter base remains deeply loyal to Trump. At the same time, the former president has racked up a long list of endorsements from elected officials — a list that includes at least half of Florida’s Republican congressional delegation.

While there are many who are staying loyal to him, I’d have to say that Trump isn’t helping matters with all of his snark tweeting and attacks on Ron instead of articulating what he CAN do to rebuild this country. That said, doesn’t anyone realize that the REAL campaign should be that of pointing out all of Biden’s failures, and his mental acuity or lack thereof? We have an administration that is driving this country into the ditch and yet the media wants a Trump/DeSantis fight instead.

Which is par for the course because the media is and will continue to carry water for Biden while he campaigns again from his basement.

We get it. There needs to be one Republican nominee to run in the general election, but if the only thing any of the candidates run on is sniping at each other instead of articulating why THEY are the best person to right this ship, the Democrats will prevail.

The announcement itself started off with technical glitches. Which, as a long-time tech person, didn’t surprise me. When you have that many people, well into the 500K range focused on one thing, the pipe gets full and therefore the feed gets wonky.

Once they got that straightened out, the ensuing discussion was quite illuminating. There will be more to dissect later, but here are a few key talking points:

Woke colleges: “If you’re a parent, and you’ve got kids, you want to know when they apply to college, they’re going to be judged based on their merit, and they’re not going to be roadkill in some type of local Olympics where they didn’t fit some category. And so they’re denied opportunity,” he said.

Overspending has driven both inflation and the debt issue.

Why Twitter Space for announcement? He’s chosen to go against the grain, especially with Covid

Name calling? PFFT. He’s over it.

The border and illegal immigration? Look at his record and compare to Biden’s.

There’s much much more and we’ll be dissecting in the coming days. The fact remains, despite the technical glitches, Ron DeSantis looks like a solid contender in a crowded field.

Feature Photo: Original artwork by Victory Girls Darleen Click