Race to Milwaukee: Iowa Iowa Iowa

All according to keikaku

Four years ago, the Sun’s staff did a Race To Milwaukee gimmick posting series. The Republican National Convention is in Milwaukee this cycle so we get to recycle the series.

Stock Up

Trump - No surprises. Nothing strange happened. He and affiliated PACs spent under $30 million for media buys in Iowa. Team Desantis spent over $75 mil and Team Haley spent over $60 mil. He did not show up to any debates. He did not even tweet.

Vivek - The campaign did not pull off a surprise, but for all the joking that he was this year’s Yang Gang, Vivek pulled almost 8% of the vote. This is superior to Yang’s performance. We thank him for discussing things that Trump would have discussed that no one else did and for using rhetoric and lines that brought new topics to a broader audience. Hopefully he gets an administration slot where he can prove he’s more than a good talker.

GOP caucus organizers - The party did not let a bleed in of infiltrators for Haley make a mockery of the event. There was no bizarre “no results, yeah sure Pete won it, uhh how about two guys won it” result like the Democrats’ 2020 caucus. It was a small display of competence. Nice job.

GOP consultants - Sweet millions already allocated for complete loser candidates with no chance of winning. How do they create these wonderful ploys?

Stock Down

Nikki Haley - The entire hack establishment got behind her with major money flowing in and all she did was reveal she is tan Hillary. She did not even just repeat her old Tea Party era lines but took on a new form. Recent polls showed her cracking into 2nd place with a ‘surge’ to the low to mid 20s. Not good that Ron held her off.

Ron Desantis - He will limp along, but this is atrocious because he destroyed his chances in ‘28. His campaign has been a dead man walking since the establishment swung behind Haley. We have contributors who feel bad for him, and it is a tragic story. All he had to do was wait.

Establishment pundits - They cannot ever get anything right. They are repeating the same mistakes of 2015/2016. They are terrible at understanding their base, and the donors and editors of their publications should clean house. Should have happened in 2017, definitely needs to happen now.

Desantis unofficial (but looks awfully official) online influencer crew - These people were detrimental to the Desantis campaign. Bad press due to some leaks for an actual campaign worker, but really, just the nastiest group of posters on Twitter. They had zero sense of humor, which made it painful to engage with them good or bad. Did anyone give a shit about the 223rd Pedro Gonzalez tweet about Gov. Desantis on a Wednesday? Dave Reaboi dumped on Trump at every moment in between taking pics of his dog going to the gym with him. There was no joi de vivre with them. No one can recreate the spirit of 2016, especially people who are late to the show and lift terribly from anons while at the same time shitting on anons. Who thought this was a good idea? Who recommended these people? Not to single them out (Rubin was just as bad + Girdusky had his moments), but they were the most annoying. These guys should apologize to all the people they cut out of their life (work related) as the Desantis campaign lost momentum and went into zombie status.

The GOP - It’s over for them. They are controlled opposition, we all know this, but there is no message for the future that is not MAGA, and they do not want to push MAGA. Very difficult years are ahead for the nation, forget the silly party, and dangerous rhetoric and bloodthirsty fantasies proliferate on the left. When a people feel cornered, the first group they will lash out at will be those who were supposed to defend them and prevent the back against the wall scenario but failed to do so (and aided in its creation). Voting for Trump is a mild expression of this.