The following is a transcript from the Pro America Report.
Welcome, welcome, welcome! Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report.
Hey, let me I I don’t know how to comment on Ron DeSantis launch of his of his presidential campaign except to say. It it it was a failure, it it was a mess. And you don’t want to see a mess when your candidate is running for president. You gotta figure he’s not a mess. So it was a mistake to do Twitter. It was a mistake to do it the way he did it, et cetera, et cetera. But I don’t think it really matters. I really don’t. I don’t think it matters. I think it matters much more how he will be perceived. How he is going to do things I he has a conservative record. He’s gonna run on that. But then his personality contest, as I said the other day and.
But here’s one thing I want to point out to you. I mentioned yesterday, I think it was on the program that in order to run for President in order to have a chance in the primary, Republican primary, which I know better, you, you have to have 50 million dollars at least. So right now there’s only a few people that have the ability to run deep into the election into this primary season. Trump is one. DeSantis is one. If another governor got in like I like Abbott he could probably raise that money. I think Tim Scott has 25 or $30 million. He’s got a shot to be in that neighborhood, but that’s about it. I mean, it’s just not easy to do and there’s no real. I don’t see any self funders who are coming in off the sidelines that would write a check. You know, they talk about Youngkin may be willing at some point, but I don’t think Youngkin, I think he’s the. I think he’s the safety valve. If something dramatic happened and and Trump couldn’t run, and by then DeSantis was damaged, which is what’s going to happen to him, I think. Then maybe Youngkin comes in and he has money. He has a I don’t know, $750 million. He could spend some of his own, but, but here’s what I want to point out.
Where does that money go? And I was with a guy this morning and he com made this comment, he said DeSantis has around him. All the usual consultant class and they’re getting paid lots and lots of money and they will get paid lots of money until you know the carcass is is cold. And and my point here is. This is this business of of, of campaigns, primary presidential primaries. It is a massive business we’re talking about, you know, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars being spent and ultimately billions being spent in the presidential race, in media, in consulting, in direct mail. In tourism, effectively visiting, you know Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, et cetera. We’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, initially billions total.
There’s a lot of interest in making sure that you have a horse race because a horse race means that there are two or three or four candidates that are worthy of your attention, and therefore they’re going to get enough attention that they’re gonna be in it longer and they’re gonna be spending money and they’re gonna be creating conflict. And that’s gonna be worth covering so you can guarantee Mike Pence is gonna run. And he’s gonna have a chunk of money. Mike Pence has raised, I don’t know, $20 million. He’ll be able to raise some money. So you’re gonna have people who get in the race, who are are, are going to be raising enough money to keep the, the, the horse race going.
Because why? Because the media. Because the consultants. Because the lawyers. Because the tourism industry, because the economy is not small economies, not $1,000,000 in travel to Iowa, hundreds of millions of dollars in TV, radio, travel, mail, everything else and consultants are invested. So DeSantis I think DeSantis will be diminished really quickly in in probably a month or two. I don’t see him taking off, but he may well. He may well be. In it longer because it’s in the nature of the of of the market to want more horse race and more candidates to go deeper, I wouldn’t be surprised by that. So it’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of money, a lot of money invested, a lot of money spent.
And the one thing my friend also Said is a lot of the donors don’t understand how the system works and they throw 10s of millions of dollars. These big, wealthy donors into systems into a system that’s not gonna succeed, and they don’t know it, and they’re really being sold a bill of goods. And I think that’s also right, when you. When I was close to the system as a chairman of the Missouri Republican Party. And that therefore, on the Republican National Committee it it was surprising to me to see how the inside worked and how clearly. How noticeably ignorant people were that were investing in it – donor types and others. They just didn’t know how it worked and they were being – they wanted to. They either wanted to do good and make the country better, or they wanted to influence Things, the ego. But either way, they were falling for a a trick, a sales trick, so. That’s what you know. That’s what you need to know today just DeSantis is going to bring a lot of money and it’s gonna be around for a while, otherwise underwhelming.
And I’ll be right back, Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report. We’ll talk with John Schlafly in just a moment. Be right back.
