Republicans, Remember 1998
In 1998, George W. Bush faced re-election in Texas. The Democrats controlled the U.S. House delegation and most statewide offices. The GOP has been making inroads but had not taken over statewide. Bush, elected in 1994 against Anne Richards, was running with a Democrat turned Republican named Rick Perry. Perry, the Commissioner of Agriculture, had blazed a trail for the GOP into statewide office in Texas in 1990, facing incumbent Jim Hightower, then embroiled in an FBI investigation.
Bush added to the ranks of statewide Republicans in 1994. In 1998, Perry sought the Lt. Governor’s seat after long-serving and very powerful Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, a Democrat, announced he would retire.
That year, Perry crossed the finish line with just over 50% of the vote and Bush won re-election with sixty-eight percent of the vote. Democrats down the ballot were crushed, and the GOP would go on to redraw Texas’s congressional lines to set up a GOP congressional majority we still have.
The echos of 1998 run through Florida.
DeSantis just saw a massive GOP wave in Florida while Republicans elsewhere say maybe ripples. In 1998, Republicans nationally underperformed expectations with a net zero gain in the Senate and a five-seat Democrat pick-up in the House.
Republicans in Washington went into rebellion against Gingrich, tossing him overboard. Republicans nationally gravitated towards the guy in Texas who’d just taken a purple state and locked it in bright red.
Now, in 2022, Republicans in Washington expecting a wave may throw Kevin McCarthy overboard. DeSantis made waves where few others did. Already, Ken Griffin, a major GOP donor, is Team DeSantis 2024. Griffin’s entry is what motivated Trump to get out of the door early.
That early maneuver by Trump, along with his attack on DeSantis right before the midterm election, is generating ire from the base today. Ken Griffin is owed thanks for forcing Trump to perform erratically enough that Trump gets some solid and deserved blame for the midterm outcome.
If, like in 1998, the base starts drifting organically to DeSantis and the large and midsize donors move his way, that sets the stage for a 2024 battle with Biden. The Democrats’ performance in the 2022 midterms means they can’t can Biden.
The big difference between 1998 and 2022 is Bush’s dad, the last one-term president, wasn’t out to sabotage his son before 2000. Trump clearly is out to sabotage DeSantis before 2024. But that might do more harm to Trump.
Trump, like Smaug the dragon, wants to lie on his gold and never use it. If the donors of the GOP show him he’d have to spend his own money, that might change things.
While there are a lot of really good candidates for the GOP in 2024, last night puts DeSantis front and center. Can he maintain the aura for two more years? Bush did in 1998 and became a two term President.
The GOP needs to unfamiliar itself with its not so great national midterm of 1998 for some lessons on how to proceed.
As I was telling my sister this morning, this is the most disappointing election I remember watching. Yeah, there were worse elections for Republicans but I did not have any high expectations, like in 2008. I knew that Obama was going to win and we were going to do badly after that financial crash. But I guess I drank too much of the red Kool-Aid this cycle, believing there was going to be a GOP wave, and we were going to pick up close to 50 seats in the House. Boy, was I off! That's why it's not healthy to stay in a bubble and listen to cheerleaders with their building false hopes (i.e. Bannon, Kirk, etc).
This also hurts Trump because many of his endorsements lost, his juvenile behavior by insulting DeSantis, and bringing too much attention to himself by hinting at the "big announcement" of running for Prez (which likely was a catalyst for bigger turnout by Dems yesterday).
If Republicans can’t win in this kind of depressed environment in the country, with all the inflation, energy costs, crime wave, WOKEism, etc., then maybe the country has changed more than I thought--and not in a good way.
Someone HAS to convince Donald Trump to appeal to his better angels and urge him to stop right now and become the statesman he could be by announcing he is not running in ‘24 and that he’ll support the party’s nominee. He served, in a strange way, a noble and successful purpose during his time in office—he showed us what a good and prosperous country we could be. Unfortunately the left has made it their main purpose to besmirch that accomplishment, and by appealing to, primarily, the uninformed voter, we wind up with what happened yesterday. DeSantis, at this point, is clearly our best hope; and Donald Trump could be the national hero he wishes to be. Never forget, he is the one the Left passionately wants to be the Republican nominee. Never doubt that for a minute. He’s the one they gleefully want on the Republican ticket.