crash and burn

GOP operative calls Ron “Don’t Say Gay” DeSantis the “worst candidate” he’s ever seen & all the latest polls agree

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Ron DeSantis

When former Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry talked about eliminating federal agencies–and then forgot which ones he would target–he turned into a laughingstock.

So naturally, Ron “Don’t Say Gay” DeSantis is following in his footsteps!

On Fox News Wednesday, the flailing Florida governor pledged he would try to eliminate the departments of education, commerce, energy and even the IRS if he were elected president.

When even host Martha MacCallum pushed back–“the IRS?!”–DeSantis went into full word salad mode.

“So if Congress will work with me on doing that, we’d be able to reduce the size and scope of government,” he said. “But what I’m also going to do is be prepared if Congress won’t go that far, I’m going to use those agencies to push back against woke ideology and against the leftism we see creeping into all institutions of American life.”

Now, how the IRS and Department of Commerce are pushing “woke ideology” and “leftism” is anybody’s guess. When DeSantis provided examples, he focused on the Department of Education, bloviating about how he would enact a nationwide transgender sports ban and reverse “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion) and “CRT” (critical race theory) initiatives.

It was like a game of GOP presidential campaign bingo. And at least one long-time Republican operative wasn’t impressed.

Jeff Timmer, who works for the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican PAC, called DeSantis the “worst candidate” he’s ever seen.

“It’s like he’s been assembled from the discarded spare parts of Bobby Jindal, Bill deBlasio, Rick Perry, and Scott Walker,” tweeted Timmer.

Poll numbers indicate that Republican voters aren’t enamored with DeSantis, either, despite his blatant pandering.

A new NBC News survey shows that DeSantis’ support has fallen by nine percentage points since April. When the GOP race is shrunk to a two-person contest, Donald Trump is at 60%, while DeSantis is at 36%.

Those numbers are in line with DeSantis’ rapidly declining favorables. His unfavorable rating currently stands at 48.1%. Back in January, it was 32.1%.

All of this has happened, by the way, while Trump faces a staggering 37-count federal indictment over his allegedly brazen mishandling of classified docs, and an indictment in New York over hush money payments he made to porn star Stormy Daniels. (Trump is also still being investigated for his efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election and role in ginning up the insurrection on the Capitol.)

DeSantis, meanwhile, has leaned heavily into the culture wars.

During Florida’s last legislative session, he expanded “Don’t Say Gay” to all grade levels, signed a bill outlawing gender-affirming care for minors and made it a criminal offense if adults don’t use the bathroom that corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth. The legislature also passed a bill targeting drag shows.

And yet, he keeps faltering. DeSantis thought scapegoating LGBTQ+ people would boost his presidential ambitions. Instead, he’s sinking.

Scroll down for more reaction to DeSantis’ latest loathsome campaign pledge…

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