{"id":1595814,"date":"2022-08-09T07:04:14","date_gmt":"2022-08-09T11:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1595814"},"modified":"2022-08-09T07:04:22","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T11:04:22","slug":"gov-desantis-to-campaign-for-doug-mastriano-kari-lake-and-other-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gov-desantis-to-campaign-for-doug-mastriano-kari-lake-and-other-candidates\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. DeSantis to Campaign for Doug Mastriano, Kari Lake, and Other Candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgov-desantis-to-campaign-for-doug-mastriano-kari-lake-and-other-candidates%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1595814&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>He has three motives in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/desantis-hit-campaign-trail-rally-support-trump-endorsed-candidates-unite-win\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">doing this<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>DeSantis will travel to New Mexico, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Ohio this month in support of GOP candidates, including Ohio Republican candidate for Senate JD Vance, Pennsylvania\u2019s GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, Arizona Republican candidate for Senate Blake Masters and GOP nominee for governor Kari Lake. <\/p>\n<p>Turning Point Action is hosting, and organizing the rallies with DeSantis in an effort to \u201cunite\u201d the Republican Party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGov. DeSantis is America\u2019s governor and one of the most popular leaders in America,\u201d Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point Action, told Fox News. \u201cHe has become the model for a new conservative movement that is willing to stand on principle and to actually fight on behalf of the values of his voters.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The first motive is the traditional one for young governors with national ambitions. He\u2019s looking to make friends and earn favors across the map in anticipation of a future presidential run. Not everyone whom he\u2019s endorsing would endorse him over Trump in a 2024 primary \u2014 in fact, probably none would \u2014 but by making nice with them he can probably prevent them from turning into future attack dogs against him on Trump\u2019s behalf. Lake, Mastriano, Vance, and Masters are all destined to be major populist influences on the party if they win (all for the worst). DeSantis needs them on the sidelines, or at least close to it, if he challenges Trump. \u201cWhat Gov. DeSantis has done in Florida has been the gold standard of bold conservative governance in America,\u201d Lake gushed to Fox News about their upcoming rally. \u201cI\u2019m excited to work with him when I\u2019m governor, I\u2019m honored to call him an ally and I can\u2019t wait for him to join me in taking the message and vision of our \u2018America First\u2019 campaign out to the masses.\u201d Mission accomplished.<\/p>\n<p>The second motive is to stay on Trump\u2019s good side, at least until DeSantis is safely reelected in November. His old friend Matt Salmon recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/meet-the-press\/meetthepressblog\/desantis-ally-pushes-florida-governor-endorse-trump-arizona-race-rcna39628\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">leaned on him to endorse Karrin Taylor Robson over Lake<\/a> in the home stretch of Arizona\u2019s gubernatorial primary, but DeSantis held off. Backing Robson would have aligned him with establishment figures in the party like Doug Ducey and Mike Pence against Trump and Lake, and DeSantis doesn\u2019t want to give Trump any easy openings to accuse him of being a RINO. So he stayed neutral in the AZ primary and is now ready to roar on behalf of Lake and Mastriano and Vance and Masters, all of whom, not coincidentally, are also backed by Trump. It\u2019s hugely important for DeSantis\u2019s electability argument in 2024 that he not only wins his gubernatorial election this fall but that he wins big; by siding with Trump on some key endorsements, he\u2019s staying in Trump\u2019s good graces and denying him a pretext to attack in hopes of reducing DeSantis\u2019s margin of victory.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings us to the third reason: DeSantis is looking for ways to signal to MAGA voters that he\u2019s down with the coup. Revisit <a href=\"https:\/\/hotair.com\/allahpundit\/2022\/08\/07\/is-liz-cheney-anti-anti-trump-now-n488008\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Liz Cheney\u2019s now-famous critique of him<\/a> in the Times yesterday.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Ms. Cheney suggested she was animated as much by Trumpism as Mr. Trump himself. She could support a Republican for president in 2024, she said, but her redline is a refusal to state clearly that Mr. Trump lost a legitimate election in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Asked if the ranks of off-limits candidates included Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whom many Republicans have latched onto as a Trump alternative, she said she \u201cwould find it very difficult\u201d to support Mr. DeSantis in a general election.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that Ron DeSantis has lined himself up almost entirely with Donald Trump, and I think that\u2019s very dangerous,\u201d Ms. Cheney said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>DeSantis *has* kissed a lot of Trump ass, most notably <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=z1YP_zZJFXs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">as a gubernatorial candidate in 2018<\/a>, but Mike Pence kissed a lot of Trump ass too and ended up affirming the legitimacy of Biden\u2019s victory on January 6. By contrast, by rallying for two hardcore 2020 election truthers in Lake and Mastriano, DeSantis is condoning trutherism without explicitly stating his support for it. He\u2019ll be walking that tightrope for the rest of his life, never quite endorsing Trump\u2019s darkest fantasies about having been cheated but certainly never repudiating them either. His strategy towards those who might consider voting for him for president will be \u201cchoose your own adventure.\u201d If you want to believe that RDS isn\u2019t a coup supporter, the fact that he\u2019s never bluntly backed Trump\u2019s attempt to overturn the election should reassure you. If you want to believe he *is* a coup supporter, look no further than the fact that he\u2019s rallying for coup supporters.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, Benjy Sarlin is right about this:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This is what separates Cheney from the party, and also why so many R\u2019s don\u2019t understand D\u2019s treating DeSantis and Trump as similarly concerning. It\u2019s not that all R\u2019s support 1\/6, but they almost all treat it as good faith disagreement between friends, rather than disqualifying. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mWXrnDJlNd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/t.co\/mWXrnDJlNd<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BenjySarlin\/status\/1556628047939387393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">August 8, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Precisely. Gun to his head, DeSantis might admit that the election wasn\u2019t rigged. But he\u2019s not bothered enough by someone who thinks it was that he won\u2019t hop on a plane, fly halfway across the country, and try to get them elected to an office that would hand them tremendous power over whether the next presidential election in their state is or isn\u2019t certified. Offered a choice between a Democrat and an autocrat (or autocrat-enabler) in races where he\u2019s under no obligation to choose, he\u2019s going to bat for the autocrats.<\/p>\n<p>Looks like Liz Cheney was right again. She usually is.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, according to Fox, the August 19 rally in Pennsylvania featuring DeSantis is for Mastriano, with no mention of Mehmet Oz. I\u2019m sure Oz would kill to appear alongside a figure as popular as DeSantis, which means if he\u2019s not part of the event then it must be at another party\u2019s insistence. Did Mastriano not want him there? Or did DeSantis conclude that he was fine campaigning with an insurrectionist but not a RINO who\u2019s likely to lose?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll leave you with this. DeSantis has cynical reasons for endorsing Lake, but he\u2019s a cynical actor. Doug Ducey isn\u2019t, or at least not as much, but even he evidently feels duty-bound to help elect insurrectionists so long as they\u2019re wearing the right team jersey. Just as friends and allies can disagree about the proper top income tax bracket, they can also disagree about whether American democracy should have been overturned to keep Donald Trump in power.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">As co-chairman of the Republican Governors Association, our organization is already active on the airwaves supporting Kari Lake\u2019s candidacy.\u00a0Congratulations to Kari on a hard-fought victory and to all the candidates who will be carrying the GOP banner in November. 3\/<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Doug Ducey (@DougDucey) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DougDucey\/status\/1556003651017027584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">August 6, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He has three motives in doing this. DeSantis will travel to New Mexico, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Ohio this month in support of GOP candidates, including Ohio Republican candidate for Senate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1596151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1595814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1595814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1596151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1595814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1595814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1595814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}