The Tweet That Got Away

#CPAC2021 poll w/o Trump

Ron DeSantis: 43%
Kristi Noem: 11%
Don Jr: 8%
Mike Pompeo: 7%
Ted Cruz: 7%
Tucker Carlson: 3%
Josh Hawley: 3%
Nikki Haley: 3%
Ivanka: 3%
Rand Paul: 2%
... and Mike Pence: 1%

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) February 28, 2021

This is the tweet I meant to post about the “deep bench” of the GOP as exemplified by the straw poll at CPAC.   Too many tweets in a post spoils the broth; or something.  Anyway, with Trump complaining about voting (a strategy which worked well in Georgia) and continuing to whine he lost (good strategy for fundraising, by which I mean the greatest grift Trump ever stumbled on; lousy strategy for a politician), this is the GOP second string (I really don’t think, if it wasn’t clear, that Trump will run in 2024.  He needs the grift.  He’s also about to be knee-deep in criminal and civil suits. And his shtick is already old and threadbare.  If won’t continue to generate outrage and political power for him into the future.  He struck a chord once; he won’t strike it again.)

Trump's decades as a real-estate salesman in New York trained him to try out sales pitches and refine them over time.

So here's how his patter about the attempted insurrection is shaping up. https://t.co/XFu3VGmJlY

— Philip Bump (@pbump) March 1, 2021

But everyone who's ever watched TV knows an ad campaign runs out of of juice eventually. You can't run the same pitch for four years. Trump's grievance/"I was robbed" message won't play much longer.