Republished with permission from Florida Phoenix, by Diane Roberts

Ronbo is pissed off. Madder than a wet hen. Angry as a sack full of rattlers. Irate as a guy with sand in his Speedo.

After everything he has done for Florida—nay, the nation!—and this is how Florida (indeed, the NATION!) repays him.

Iowa poll numbers? In the crapper.

The Koch Bros? Endorsed Nikki Haley.

Sen. Rick Scott? Endorsed Trump.

Ronbo’s trapped in a desperation tantrum so unhinged he keeps threatening to bomb the Bahamas.

He has decided to show how tough he is, going on the offensive not against Moscow but against a peaceable nation of pink buildings, blue seas, and Black people, wooing voters in Iowa and New Hampshire by hollering, “Like, if the Bahamas were firing rockets into Fort Lauderdale, like, we would not accept that for, like, one minute. I mean, we would just level it.”

The government of the Bahamas has requested urgent clarification.

Here’s the question: How many wheels will fall off the Ronbo bus before it lands permanently and irreparably in the ditch?

Ronbo’s problems go way beyond his reputed penchant for eating pudding with his hands.

Rep. Randy Fine, once DeSantis’ most loyal pet poodle, has turned on his master. Along with a pack of other traitors in the Florida Legislature, he’s defected, switched his endorsement to Trump.

Fine says it’s because the governor was too slow in condemning the Nazis who persisted in waving DeSantis signs all over Florida.

(Fine should have known better: The governor can hardly go around dissing his base, right?)

Backing Down

Now Ronbo’s backers are becoming hysterical. That guy who was CEO of the DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down?

He backed down. Bailed. Resigned over issues “well beyond a difference of strategic opinion.”

A couple of weeks earlier, NBD’s top dudes had met to figure out how DeSantis could counter the menace that is Nikki Haley. Two of them nearly got into a fistfight.

Top consultant Jeff Roe took exception to Scott Wagner, a buddy of DeSantis’ from their (totally non-elitist) Yale days, saying “You have a stick up your a—, Scott.”

“Why don’t you come over here and get it?” said Wagner, who reportedly had to be restrained by two other NBD board members.

Adding to the general air of doom and disarray, Ronbo’s big donors wonder what happened to all that campaign cash. DeSantis and PACs supporting him vacuumed up fat checks early on, but a lot of that cash seems to have been blown on private jet travel.

Obviously, Ronbo, his Jackie-wannabe First Lady, and the campaign prop offspring can’t fly commercial.

One donor expressed alarm that “these guys have spent all this money for no return.” He added, “You don’t just keep throwing money at Radio Shack.”

What’s a poor graduate of Yale and Harvard to do? The serious cash is drying up; the media are dismissing him; the elites are ridiculing him; Nikki Haley (like, a GIRL!) is attacking him.

Worst of all, Donald Trump is trolling him. Hard.

Think of it: Ronbo and Plastic Jackie did that adorable Build-the-Wall campaign ad with their adorable kid in 2018—a huge compliment to then-President Trump—and he repays them with insults, taunting, and sneering.

Trump is also tormenting them by being 30 points ahead in Iowa and 40 points ahead in New Hampshire.

So unfair.

‘Wounded Bird’

On Nov. 5, Trump told the Republican Party’s hilariously named “Freedom Summit” that his rivals should drop out of the race. DeSantis in particular: “We hit him hard and now he’s like a wounded bird falling from the sky.”

Before the DeSantis duck splats on the pavement, making an unseemly mess, he’s tried one last, desperate move: debating a guy who isn’t running for president.

Last Thursday on Fox “News,” Ronbo went at California Gov. Gavin Newsom in what moderator Sean Hannity cast with characteristic understatement as both a “mixed martial arts” bout and a “war.”

Fun fact about Newsom: He used to be married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s shouty squeeze.

Fun fact about DeSantis: He has a habit of wiping his nose then depositing his snot on potential voters’ sleeves.

But here’s how it went—at least the parts you could make out amidst the hollering, insults, and interruptions.

DeSantis said California screwed up COVID; Newsom said Florida screwed up COVID. Newsom said DeSantis wants to stop women having control over their bodies, signing a bill that bans abortions at six weeks, before they even know they’re pregnant.

DeSantis said that’s because he’s into life in all its forms and iterations unless maybe it’s gay.

(That’s what he meant, anyway).

Newsom brought up Ronbo’s zeal for banning books; Ronbo whipped out texts he said were pornographic. Newsom rolled his eyes; Ronbo crowed that everyone in California is moving to Florida, including Newsom’s in-laws.

Given that the parents of Newsom’s wife are rich Republicans, it’s not exactly shocking they bought a second home (for a mere $3.3 million) in Naples.

Poop Map

Then, in a coup de théâtre, DeSantis whipped out a map of San Francisco dappled in various shades of brown. It supposedly tracks incidents of public defecation in the city he described as “previously great.”

“Feces is now a fact of life,” said Ronbo.

Newsom deployed a relaxed Kennedyesque smile to convey his contempt for DeSantis, poop, porn, and all.

DeSantis had clearly been advised to arrange his resting-jerk face into a more pleasant configuration, even to “smile.”

Ron DeSantis’ “smile” is about as genuine as George Santos’ resumé.

More fun facts: Newsom is at least four inches taller than DeSantis.

While the AP called the debate a “hard to explain” spectacle, it isn’t really hard to explain at all: Newsom was raising his national profile for a likely White House run in 2028; DeSantis, his presidential campaign collapsing around him like a gingerbread house in the rain, is desperate.

As former GOP strategist Stuart Stevens twxxted: “@RonDeSantis will go down as the chump who not only lost every debate in his race, but lost to a guy who isn’t even in the race. That’s talent.”

It gets worse: The Washington Post reports that DeSantis campaign staffers smell disaster. A source told the newspaper: “People increasingly think it’s over. It’s a dumpster fire.”

Ménage à Trois

The Florida Republican Party is doing a little self-immolating of its own. DeSantis pal Christian Ziegler, state party chairman and pious promoter of “family values,” is under criminal investigation for rape.

A woman says he assaulted her and claims that he, she, and his wife had a hot little ménage à trois going down there in Sarasota.

She also alleges he videotaped their, er, encounters.

Bridget Ziegler is a school board member and one of the founders of Moms for Liberty. She demands that “religious values” return to our schools and wants books on racism, LGBTQ issues, and anything that depicts sex be removed from libraries lest it corrupt our youth.

As DeSantis watches his White House dreams turn to ash, he’s feebly calling for Ziegler to resign.

It won’t matter. He won’t matter.

The bigtalking “Top Gov” in the ill-fitting flight suit has been forced to come down to earth; the swaggering Walmart Napoleon who bought the early hype around his “inevitability,” is now heading for his Waterloo.