DeSantis has competence, but it’s combined with his own personal favor. It helped him stand out from the crowd — then it started hurting his candidacy. Even failure or shadiness can make a candidate stand out. Biden made a folksy mediocrity his unique calling card. Christie and Giuiliani stand out for their foibles (and regional pecularities).

Candidates also have to please the donors and the interest and advocacy groups. A governor or mayor who could bring us normalcy, peace and prosperity wouldn’t please them. They like what Biden is giving us. But who is to say that the competent also-rans are really that competent? Maybe they fit into their current niches but just haven’t had a chance to rise to the level of incompetence.

yes the progressive conservatives collapsed sometime around 93, making way for the reform party, for reason I can’t understand, they handed the baton back to them after Harper,

People say that McCain’s “suspending his campaign” doomed him, but I think it was just another indication of his lackluster, half-hearted, chaotic campaign. McCain pulled up to Obama in the polls in September and then fell back. That looks a lot like a temporary convention boost and not something that he could sustain. I look at McCain’s advisors who are now on MSNBC and in the Lincoln Project and think that there was no way he could have won after the economic collapse.

But I don’t think there are better candidates now than in 2016. There were so many candidates that year. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio were all men with a future. Giuliani had a great record and wasn’t what he is now. Chris Christie wasn’t quite what he is now either. I heard a little about Mitch Daniels, Tim Pawlenty, and Scott Walker (very little admittedly) and thought they might make good candidates or even presidents, but none of them went very far. None of the candidates dealt with the pressing issues as much as Trump, but I don’t think Scott or Haley or Burgum are appreciably better than the candidates 8 years go. Admittedly, though, DeSantis, Haley (and Burgum) do have administrative experience as governors, something senators like Paul, Cruz and Rubio didn’t, and they actually are running in a way that Daniels and Pawenty, for one reason or another, never got around to.

In my view, what sunk McCain was his erratic behavior after the Lehman collapse. Remember when he decided that he wouldn’t debate because he had to be in Washington for the bailout negotiations, and then he changed his mind at the last minute? (I think that McCain was still publicly waffling on the day of the debate itself.) He failed to provide any confidence that he had things under control. Obama, on the other hand, was able to keep his cool publicly (“no drama Obama”). If McCain had been able to project an image of mature stability, I think he would have won in 2008 despite the financial crisis and the state of the wars at the time.

McCain had no chance of winning after the banks and brokerage firms started getting into trouble, but it was strange how he went out of his way to assure people that Obama was no threat to the country. That was anything but a winning strategy.

After some amount of losing, Republicans are going to end up moving hard to the center, like the “Third Way” DLC Democrats did in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. After 1988, the D team had been shut out of the White House for five out of the six previous terms. If Republicans don’t win in 2024, it will be 4 L’s out of the past 5 tries.

That’s part of what’s so depressing about Trump. The best deal that the right is ever going to get in the GOP is right now with DeSantis or a similar candidate. The non-MAGA portions of the party are more than willing to unite behind someone like DeSantis to get rid of Trump. Heck, even Haley would be better than Romney, McCain, or Bush by a large measure and probably has the best chance of winning the general.

After Trump drags the party to defeat, again, in 2024, I don’t see any scenario where Trumpers get anything better than what DeSantis is offering now. (And frankly, it’s difficult to see them getting anything better than what Haley is offering now.) After 2024, the GOP is either going to be split and ineffective as a national force or taken over by the Larry Hogan/Chris Sununu wing. After four losses out of five in presidential elections and four cycles in a row of underperformance in Congress, at a minimum, the Larry Hogan/Chris Sununu wing is going to have a powerful argument, just like Clinton and the DLC folks had in 1992.

(You might say that turned out well for the left, and it did – about twenty years later.)