The latest in a slew of not great looks from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
While early on in the campaign cycle some thought he had a chance of taking out Donald Trump to earn the Republican nomination in the 2024 Presidential election, DeSantis officially called it quits after finishing a distant second place in last week’s Iowa caucus, announcing he was suspending his presidential campaign in a video posted to social media.
He also endorsed Donald Trump, a move that was foreseeable but certainly a bit humiliating, as he spent the better part of his campaign being mocked by the former president. (Ron DeSanctimonious has since been retired by The Donald).
At surface level, this is a pretty cut and dry typical political statement. But as folks on the internet tend to do, they tried to find anything possible to pick on, and oh boy did they find a good one.
At the end of his message, and in his caption, Ron quoted Winston Churchill (or, at least he thought), saying:
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Turns out, Winston Churchill never actually said those words. In fact, the only place they can be found in the public record are a Budweiser advertisement from the 1930’s.
That’s right, Ron DeSantis quoted Budweiser, a brand he spent a ton of time railing against during the Bud Light Controversy from last spring, as a way to announce he was getting in line behind Donald Trump, adding insult to injury at a whole new level…
I mean, this is bad on so many levels. Just from a PR perspective, you can’t let this happen and I’m sure there’s a lot of aides getting quite an earful as we speak. While it’s safe to assume DeSantis’ political career is far from over, it’s going to take a good bit of reputation rebuilding to get back the spark he once had in the Sunshine State. Just a tough way to end it for ol’ Ron…
Here’s a campaign theme song written and performed for DeSantis by Lynyrd Skynyrd’s lead singer Johnny Zan Zant in support of his 2022 gubernatorial reelection campaign.
