the trump/desantis battle evolved into a schoolyard brawl. you don t change your name in the middle of the election. his whole family moved to florida under my governorship. are you kidding me? what is the desantis plan to convince voters he s not just a better nominee but a better president. plus the gop field keeps growing. three more candidates will jump in this week including trump s former vp. republicans have to offer a positive vision grounded in conservative principles. but how many of them will make it to the republican debate stage? and disaster averted. no one got everything wanted but the american people got what they needed. the president said it is proof his brand of politics still works. i know bipartisanship is hard but we could never stop trying. welcome to inside politics sunday , i m abby phillip. thank you for joining. it is all about iowa, iowa. and yesterday marks the first start of the caucus season with eight presidential hopefuls
reshaping the republican parry. and so he s also trying to bring the republican party back to what the pence party, the ronald reagan party, the more traditional component of the republican party and i mean, i would argue, we ll say, but the republican party has moved on from that. it is a small and perilous lane. right. so pence wants to have a positive cheerful candidacy. and focus on life and abortion and he wants to defy the politics of personality which is a clear allusion to trump and populism. those are the dominant forces that have been covering the republican primary and it is hard to see a dramatic shift even with one candidacy changing that any time soon. and i will also wonder if some of the candidates like a mike pence will have to contrast with ron desantis, as we were discussing earlier in the program, desantis is not running
he was donald trump s vice president, he s now running against donald trump. so the candidacy is pointed to begin with. he understands, i think, that iowa is an opportunity to take to test run both the message of religious faith and conviction and the message of sort of positivity and moving forward. but the early polling puts him at somewhere around 4% or 5%. so it is a perfectly good place to test your cred, whether it is on a motorcycle or in church on sunday. but it is still very it is difficult for him. an it is difficult for all of other candidates who are going to be emerging in the next couple of days. chris christie saying it shouldn t be donald trump again. well let s hear chris
double-digits. several more republicans including chris sununu and glenn youngkin of virginia are still mulling over this cand idacy. but pence jumping in the race is significant. wasn t always a foregone conclusion that pence could decide to do it about but he made the pitch on saturday to voters. republicans have to offer a positive vision of the future grounds in conservative principles and we have to speak hard truths. i m i believe we have to resist the and we need to stand firm on the conservative agenda of life and liberty and a commitment to freedom that has always led us to victory. for mike pence, that is very pointed, i would think, right?