As the votes rolled in following the November 7 election, so did criticism and memes about Dear Ronna Romney-McDaniel.
Imagine what is on Dear Ronna’s mind (cover pic) right now:
Why the complaints? We missed winning by only this much.
But that’s the wrong answer, lady. We lost. You lost. Hit the bricks.
This from redstate.com.
DC Draino wrote on X last week:
If Matt Gaetz can vacate Kevin McCarthy, I think it’s time for President Trump to vacate Ronna McDaniel.
Only he has the power to do it at this point.
Candidates are feeling emboldened to buck the RNC following yet another disappointing election for Republicans on Tuesday.
During the third debate, Vivek Ramaswamy called for RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to resign, citing the party’s “culture of losing.”
As Ramaswamy and many others have pointed out, 2016 was the last time the Republican Party won big.
He said:
I think there is something deeper going on in the Republican Party here, and I am upset about what happened last night. We’ve become a party of losers.
There is a cancer to the Republican establishment. Let’s speak the truth. I mean, since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022—no red wave that ever came—we got trounced last night in 2023.
And I think that we have to have accountability in our party. For that matter, Ronna, if you want to come on stage tonight, if you want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them that you resign, I will … yield my time to you.
But were the Tuesday election losses McDaniel’s fault? Let’s look at the facts.
As Politico noted:
McDaniel was tapped as the replacement to former GOP chair Reince Priebus in 2017 and with the full support of then-President-Elect Donald Trump.
Upon her election, McDaniel vowed to shape the party around Trump’s vision for America.
As Politico also noted:
McDaniel inherited a party that at the time held all but 23 governor’s mansions nationwide and a party that had complete control of the legislative chambers in 32 states.
On top of that:
[T]he U.S. Supreme Court was at that point sure to end up with a conservative majority, the GOP had majorities in the House and the Senate and Trump had just been elected as president.
McDaniel has presided over a party that had lost seven governor’s mansions, and the party controls both legislative chambers in 28 states—a net loss of four.
From McDaniel’s election until today, the party has lost the House, the Senate, and the White House—although the GOP did regain a slight House majority in the 2022 midterms.
NOTE: Those elections were predicted to be a red wave. The red wave never materialized and the Republican Party has had two House speakers in 10 months.
Now, Ron DeSantis is throwing more gasoline on the fire, announcing that he is going to defy a threat from McDaniel to disqualify any candidate who attends an upcoming forum in Iowa.
.@RonDeSantis tells @wrmcduff he will attend the Family Leader Thanksgiving Forum in Iowa despite RNC warnings:
“I think it's an important part of this process. It's been a part of this process for a long time. There's no way that should cause the RNC to penalize any candidate.” pic.twitter.com/kzwSbh2Fd6
— Kit Maher (@KitMaherCNN) November 11, 2023
According to an October 28th letter, the RNC has deemed the Family Leader Thanksgiving Forum, hosted by Bob Vander Plaats, to be a “debate.” That would supposedly violate the pledge the candidates signed in order to participate in the RNC debates, though there’s a good case to be made they are stretching the definition of term to absurd lengths.
The RNC counsel’s office said in a letter obtained by CNN:
It has come to the attention of the RNC Counsel’s Office that several Republican presidential candidates have been invited to participate in an open-press event in Iowa in November at which they would ‘gather around the table to have a moderated, friendly, and open discussion about the issues.’ In other words, a debate.
Accordingly, please be advised that any Republican presidential candidate who participates in this or other similar events will be deemed to have violated this pledge and will be disqualified from taking part in any future RNC-sanctioned presidential primary debates.
From a political standpoint, this is absolutely the right move for DeSantis. His entire campaign hinges on winning Iowa and changing the dynamic of the race going into New Hampshire. If he loses the Iowa caucuses, the loss would officially end any chance he has to win the nomination.
Given that, this was probably an easy decision for DeSantis. He stands to gain much more by going to the wall in Iowa than being in another RNC-officiated debate.
Final thoughts: President Trump is being encouraged to have Dear Ronna removed. I trust The Plan, but I’m doubting chubby a** Ronna is part of The Plan. Please, Mr. President, Dump Dear Ronna.
