You would be a fool to rule Donald Trump out.
Part of the reason Ron DeSantis got so many headlines last week was because he won well on a day the Republicans didn’t do what they thought they would do - and because a lot of people from all over the political spectrum wanted to rub Trump's face in it.
DeSantis on any other day for a lot of people would be as big a problem becoming president as Trump would. Is he a better version of Trump? Possibly, but the part most failed to point out or even see was that DeSantis did well in one state, the state he was running in.
A President has to be at least partially popular all over America.
And don't forget when Trump announced in 2015 he joined a decent list of others. For many he was instantly dismissed the way he is again now. It was full field back then. We had Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, and Jim Gilmore.
You even remember him?
Add to that, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, and Mike Huckerbee.
And those were the ones that made it to the primaries. The ones that worked out they didn’t stand a chance and bailed were George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, Scott Walker, and Rick Perry.
So a full field of vast experience. And if you remember and followed the race a lot of them were more than acceptable in terms of brainpower, experience, and ideas. And yet, look who won.
Working against him his time is his record and the pile of lawsuits. And although there are many who still see him as the answer and untouchable, a decent chunk will have wandered off to other pastures. And given he never won by much in the first place, he has a lot of work to do to convince others to make up the numbers.
Ironically, for all the mess, there are things he did that still ring true.
He warned us about China. He was right. He told Angela Merkel she was mad to trust Vladimir Putin. He was right. He told NATO members outside America they had to start footing the bill. He was right.
This is not to endorse him in any way. He's a mad man who hangs around with crazies and says an astonishing array of insane things.
But that didn’t stop him once and it didn’t stop the Democrats being unable to find anyone that wasn’t geriatric and deeply confused on a daily basis to run against him.
The American system is broken. But it's that system that will once again choose a person to run in 2024.
And there is no reason to believe, for now anyway, that Trump isn't it.