Fast starts are a good, sometimes great, thing. There’s nothing wrong with being first out of the gate. So, a tip o’ the straw hat to Donald Trump for dominating Iowa and taking the early lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
But, as even sprinter superb Usain Bolt would tell you, first out of the blocks does not necessarily mean first at the finish line. If fast starts were all they were cut out to be, the wildcard-loser Philadelphia Eagles wouldn’t be asking fundamental questions about their future today.
Besides, who doesn’t love a back-from-the-brink tale? Cockeyed optimists prevailing against daunting odds are the endless source of American lore.
It’s not where you start, goes the Broadway tune, it’s where you finish. Yogi opined it ain’t over ’til it’s over. John Paul Jones, America’s first hero captain, is said to have sneered, “I have not yet begun to fight” in the face of British cannon.
So, where does that leave Ron DeSantis, the distant silver medalist in the Battle for Iowa? The Florida governor did everything traditionally demanded of a candidate hoping to woo Hawkeye State voters. He held events in all 99 counties, played catch on the Field of Dreams, defended hog farming at a barbecue, won the endorsements of a popular governor, a faith leader, and the state’s top conservative radio host, rounded up a record number of precinct captains, and — as it turns out — shook more hands, probably, than caucusers who braved the arctic chill Monday night.
And he still finished 30 points behind Trump, the man of many felony indictments.
Worse, the road immediately ahead bodes rocky for him, and favorable for Nikki Haley.
New Hampshire, quirky in its own ways, votes next Tuesday; with corn fields in her rearview mirror, bronze medalist Nikki Haley, No. 2 with a bullet in Granite State polls, can openly own her claim about New Hampshire administering a corrective to Iowa’s excesses.
Beyond that, South Carolina, where Haley was governor for six years, and Trump is absurdly popular.
Against that forbidding backdrop, by some accounts, DeSantis and his supporters displayed a head-scratching mix of optimism and determination.
Florida state Rep. Chip LaMarca of Broward County — one of a few dozen Republicans from DeSantis’ homestate who traveled to Iowa to help the governor campaign ahead of the caucuses — said that he expects DeSantis to stay in the race for at least another month. DeSantis himself said that his campaign is prepared for a prolonged fight for delegates.
“We’re in this for the long haul. We understand that you got to win a majority of the delegates,” he said during a Sunday appearance on CNN. “We understand that there’s a long process here, but we’re going to do well, because we’ve done it right.”
Taking their cue, perhaps, from DeSantis — “We got our ticket punched out of Iowa,” he told supporters in a celebratory post-caucus moment in West Des Moines — some were willing to slather an entire Estée Lauder gift-with-purchase makeover set on a state fair hog.
Former Florida state House Speaker Jose Oliva, who traveled to Iowa to speak at a caucus precinct on the governor’s behalf on Monday, said that DeSantis is intent on staying in the race until at least Super Tuesday, when 16 states will hold their primaries.
“If there’s anything politics has taught us it’s that anything can happen,” Oliva said. “His view of it is he’s going to go to New Hampshire, he’s going to South Carolina and he’s going to Super Tuesday. He believes his message is a strong message and he believes he can get it to resonate.”
Good on DeSantis. Good on the process. There’s nothing wrong with a tarted-up pig. The time for the airing of ideas and arguments and grievances is now and in the coming weeks; whoever winds up with the nomination will be the better candidate for it.
So listen to the voice that egged on Ray Kinsella: Go the distance.
As for whether carrying on will wreck DeSantis’ career — MAGA’s disingenuous view of the landscape — remember, Ronald Reagan battled Gerald Ford to the convention in 1976, and that worked out OK for him (and the country, as it happened).
So damn the torpedoes, and all that. Full speed ahead.
