I'd phrase it slightly differently - DeSantis' assignment was to be the best placed to beat or replace Trump should an event exogenous to internal Republican Party dynamics weaken Trump sufficiently (other than a health event, I'm not sure what that could be - Trump could probably shoot Tucker Carlson or MTG on 5th Ave and his base would OK with it : shooting a Dem would be nothing; *maybe* some sort of smoking gun involving China could seriously damage Trump, although I doubt it).
Even if it was only ever a fool's hope to win the nomination this time, it's still clear that he could have done significantly better and set himself up better for next time.
As competitive primaries go, the numbers show that McCain got thoroughly clobbered in 2000 and realistically never stood a chance, but his performance still made him the frontrunner in 2008.
As it stands, the DeSantis campaign has gone poorly enough that he's being compared not to McCain but Scott Walker, who is universally viewed as being unable to credibly run for President ever again. I'm not sure if DeSantis is quite as finished as Walker, but right now he seems pretty finished.
Re McCain (and Romney) setting themselves up for the hypothetical next in line shot:
Yeah, but that was a very different party than it is now, plus neither one was challenging an incumbent. A closer model would probably be Reagan's near miss in 1976, and it's an even more different party compared to back then (to say nothing of Ford lacking the iron grip on the party that Trump has, a grip that has not been remotely matched since Reagan's 2nd term, if then, IMHO).
I kind of agree with the Walker comparison - idiot that I am, had you forced me to bet as of Jan 2015 on the most likely nominee, I probably would have picked him (I would still want odds, but I thought he had better odds than any other likely candidate). Boy, did I fail to understand the actually existing Republican party as it was by then.
Well, Trump both is and isn't an incumbent. For the purposes of this primary, I'd place him somewhere between one and an ordinary front-runner. To use one of your comparisons: if Reagan had been able to run for a third term, I'm pretty sure he'd have gotten more than 51% of the Iowa caucus vote.
The point stands that, regardless of how much the party has changed, favorable name recognition still counts for a lot in primaries. Historically it has probably meant somewhat less to the Democrats, who have nominated some relative dark horses for President before (e.g. Carter, Bill Clinton, Obama kind of).
So you could argue maybe the Republicans are a lot more open to a dark horse without a national profile now. But in 2016 the Republicans nominated a famous celebrity who had been engaged in an extraordinary amount of self-promotion for decades, and it looks like this year they're nominating a former President. So I just don't see any evidence of that yet.
Maybe Trump will set up a close ally of his to follow him. Though he has a lot of trouble handing off the spotlight. He certainly didn't try to set up Pence to follow him. The alternative is to be someone nationally prominent who sort of aligns with Trump's agenda but hasn't been his lapdog. E.g. DeSantis.
I'd phrase it slightly differently - DeSantis' assignment was to be the best placed to beat or replace Trump should an event exogenous to internal Republican Party dynamics weaken Trump sufficiently (other than a health event, I'm not sure what that could be - Trump could probably shoot Tucker Carlson or MTG on 5th Ave and his base would OK with it : shooting a Dem would be nothing; *maybe* some sort of smoking gun involving China could seriously damage Trump, although I doubt it).
Otherwise it was always an impossible task.
Even if it was only ever a fool's hope to win the nomination this time, it's still clear that he could have done significantly better and set himself up better for next time.
As competitive primaries go, the numbers show that McCain got thoroughly clobbered in 2000 and realistically never stood a chance, but his performance still made him the frontrunner in 2008.
As it stands, the DeSantis campaign has gone poorly enough that he's being compared not to McCain but Scott Walker, who is universally viewed as being unable to credibly run for President ever again. I'm not sure if DeSantis is quite as finished as Walker, but right now he seems pretty finished.
Re McCain (and Romney) setting themselves up for the hypothetical next in line shot:
Yeah, but that was a very different party than it is now, plus neither one was challenging an incumbent. A closer model would probably be Reagan's near miss in 1976, and it's an even more different party compared to back then (to say nothing of Ford lacking the iron grip on the party that Trump has, a grip that has not been remotely matched since Reagan's 2nd term, if then, IMHO).
I kind of agree with the Walker comparison - idiot that I am, had you forced me to bet as of Jan 2015 on the most likely nominee, I probably would have picked him (I would still want odds, but I thought he had better odds than any other likely candidate). Boy, did I fail to understand the actually existing Republican party as it was by then.
Well, Trump both is and isn't an incumbent. For the purposes of this primary, I'd place him somewhere between one and an ordinary front-runner. To use one of your comparisons: if Reagan had been able to run for a third term, I'm pretty sure he'd have gotten more than 51% of the Iowa caucus vote.
The point stands that, regardless of how much the party has changed, favorable name recognition still counts for a lot in primaries. Historically it has probably meant somewhat less to the Democrats, who have nominated some relative dark horses for President before (e.g. Carter, Bill Clinton, Obama kind of).
So you could argue maybe the Republicans are a lot more open to a dark horse without a national profile now. But in 2016 the Republicans nominated a famous celebrity who had been engaged in an extraordinary amount of self-promotion for decades, and it looks like this year they're nominating a former President. So I just don't see any evidence of that yet.
Maybe Trump will set up a close ally of his to follow him. Though he has a lot of trouble handing off the spotlight. He certainly didn't try to set up Pence to follow him. The alternative is to be someone nationally prominent who sort of aligns with Trump's agenda but hasn't been his lapdog. E.g. DeSantis.