DeSantis Serves Up Red Meat Conservatism To Voters During New Hampshire Campaign Swing

CONCORD, NH — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political action committee, Never Back Down, took the candidate and an entourage from the southern to the western part of New Hampshire for events on Friday and Saturday.

DeSantis spoke at a “Steak Out” fundraiser on Friday for Nashua Republicans. On Saturday, the candidate gave stump speeches and took questions from mostly friendly, Republican audiences, chock full of supporters and others, at events in Manchester and Newport. But he also shook hands at the Londonderry Old Home Day Parade and visited roadside eateries in Hooksett and Newport to woo undecideds.

During his stumps, he threw red meat at conservative voters just days before the first 2024 primary cycle debate, scheduled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and stressed the need for Republicans to have a nominee that was not whining about the past but looking toward the future. DeSantis said he would end the “woke” agenda in schools and the military, would work to ensure veterans were taken care of, would shore up Social Security, and fix the border issues — including giving the green light for military action to shoot and kill drug mules bringing in fentanyl into the United States, which has killed tens of thousands.

The debate, scheduled for Wednesday, should feature at least eight presidential candidates. Former President Donald Trump was not expected to attend and, instead, will sit down for an interview with Tucker Carlson on Twitter.

The Dudes And Darlings On The Bus

It was “The Boys on the Bus,” 2024 style, Saturday, as PAC aides, security, and more than half a dozen embeds and photogs from Reuters, the New York Times, ABC, NBC, CNN, CBS, and Patch (me), made the 11-hour trek through the Granite State to follow DeSantis.

While it was not quite the 1972 campaign (nowhere near as crazy, actually), the young women and men, and two older men — guys and gals or dudes and darlings, if you will, started at the Marriott in Manchester, running a bit late since one journalist overslept, to Londonderry for the Old Home Day parade.

On the way, the van had a find an alternate route after one road was closed due to Xfinity performing work, due possibly, it appeared, to a crash in the Sugarplum Hill area of town.

After arriving, the staff offered the back of a pickup truck for embeds to sit and take pictures of the marches while other journalists decided to walk the route.

Gov. Chris Sununu, who chatted with DeSantis and his supporters before the parade, spoke to reporters about the importance of the first-in-the-nation primary and advice he had given to the Florida governor — get out there, shake hands, and talk to regular people. He also called Trump a “chicken” for ducking the first debate.

The parade route ran about a mile and half down Mammoth Road.

At first, DeSantis seemed to shy away from shaking hands. But soon after it started, he appeared to loosen up, shook hands, and hugged people he seemed to recognize. One heckler yelled, “Go back to Florida,” but the governor’s supporters began chanting, “USA, USA,” to drown him out. While there were some Trump supporters along the parade route, only three people audibly heckled the candidate — the aforementioned man and a woman also ordering him to return to Florida, and someone else making a joke about pudding fingers. Many more, however, hundreds, actually, offered hands and cheered him for being at the parade.

The pleasantries should be no surprise since — historically, Londonderry has been a red town, about a 60-40 split, although Democrats have made inroads in the community during the last decade or so.

At the end of the parade, DeSantis posed for pictures, including a Bektash Shriners clown, who was hamming it up for the cameras.

Meet-And-Greet In Manchester

After a pitstop at 7-Eleven, the crew headed to the DoubleTree by Hilton in Downtown Manchester at the Penstock Room, a bar space inside the hotel.

There, several supporters from the parade, as well as others, mingled around before hearing from former state Rep. Melissa Blasek, R-Merrimack, who introduced DeSantis, saying his leadership during the coronavirus pandemic “was a beacon of sanity” and a testament to liberty.

“(DeSantis) was the only politician in America that fundamentally pushed back against the entire COVID narrative,” she said. “Gov. DeSantis doesn’t just rail about the problems; he knows how to stick a landing to implement a conservating, governing agenda.”

Blasek, a mom and musician, was one of a handful of state representatives who wanted Sununu impeached for his lockdown and other proposals early in the pandemic. Sununu got the last laugh though as a PAC connected to him flooded Merrimack with materials and she lost re-election by 76 votes.

DeSantis went through a litany of policy positions but focused primarily on promising to overturn Bidenomics and helping middle-class families get back to a position where they can afford groceries, a car, and housing. “Government induced-policies,” he said, were why ordinary Americans had problems making ends meet, starting with the coronavirus lockdowns and printing money. DeSantis was critical, too, of the wealth in communities surrounding the District of Columbia, which showed the government sector was harming the people.

“You are paying the bill in the form of higher prices,” he said.

DeSantis was critical of “the woke agenda,” saying he would reverse the education and military policies, and would work to replace the heads of agencies and employees who were harming the people. He joked his daughter made better fingerpainting than Hunter Biden, but she was not making hundreds of thousands of dollars, which got a laugh out of the crowd.

DeSantis said a national emergency needed to be declared to deal with the invasion at the southern border while marshaling all available resources. Action at the border went beyond just finishing the wall, he said. Angel Moms, who had lost loved ones due to killings connected to illegal immigrants and fentanyl coming across the border, deserved more than talk after tens of thousands of deaths. Every community, he said, was now a border community, whether due to migrant relocation or fentanyl.

“I’m going to treat the cartels like the international terrorist organizations that they are,” DeSantis said. “We’re authorizing the use of deadly force, at the southern border. When they try to come in, to our country, with that poison, that’s going to be the last thing that they do. ‘Cause we’re going to shoot them stone-cold dead.”

After answering a handful of questions, the candidate shook hands, poised for pictures, and headed to the next event.

While at the DoubleTree, supporters signed the side of the Never Back Down bus while the journalists enjoyed street tacos before heading to Starbucks to recharge and then, Hooksett and Newport.

Roadside Food … And A Bus Gets Stuck

DeSantis made a stop at the Brick House drive-in restaurant, ordered some food, and spoke with more supporters and others, as well as a few snowbirds.

The governor remarked how much his children loved all the great ice cream in the state when they marched in parades in New Hampshire in July. He hoped to bring them back soon.

The Never Back Down bus and the embeds then drove to Newport, strangely, although scenic, taking the long way to Newport via Route 202-9 and Route 103 through Bradford and Sunapee. The volunteer driver, who was following the bus, too, was confused why they did not continue north on Interstate 89. One of the embeds, who joshed that they did not always know what day it was, asked if Lake Sunapee was “the Winnie” wondering why the van was in the Lakes Region. They were told, it was OK, that was Sunapee, and the driver was going in the correct direction.

At a stop at Dad’s Restaurant in Newport, the bus misnavigated the dip at the entrance and became stuck. The journalists' van was whisked to the back of the restaurant for a short spell, trying to control the scene while the staffers figured out what was happening. Some embeds used a restroom while the governor met with a couple of diners and held a gaggle with the journalists. Two asked about his pull aside with Paul Steinhauser at Fox News about a leaked debate strategy memo that had been dogging the candidate with the politerati. I asked about healing the national divide.

The campaign then moved up the road a few miles to a historic mill and hydro generation facility on Sunapee Street for a town hall.

On the second floor of the building, which is being restored and made into apartments, the candidate offered similar “red meat” conservative themes and answered questions about Catholicism and abortion, and housing and inflation, and other issues. Jay Lucas, a businessman and attorney, who was elected to the Statehouse as a teenager in the 1970s and unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1998, was seen seated with his wife, Karen, behind DeSantis along with other Sullivan County supporters (the Lucases host the Sunshine Report, a charming, positive video series, posted on LinkedIn and other places online).

Jim Rubens, a former state Senate who lost Republican primary bids for U.S. Senate in 2014 and 2016, who also lost the gubernatorial GOP primary to Lucas in 1998, asked DeSantis about an Article V Convention of States for amendments about term limits and a balanced budget amendment. DeSantis said he supported the initiatives and the convention of states, noting he, as a governor, had to make the tough decisions to balance budgets. But those decisions, he noted, led to surpluses in Florida.

Sometime between the Never Back Down bus at Dad’s Restaurant getting stuck and the town hall event, a tow truck came to lift it out of the dip. After the town hall, the bus was seen in front of the van with journalists, heading south — but taking the long way back again to Manchester.

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