ELECTION/GOP/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “The Sarasota County Republican fair and rally last Saturday [7-28-18] left little mystery about what is animating the party this year. There was a ‘Trump Shop’ outside the arena, selling T-shirts extolling the president’s dominance. There was a life-size cardboard cutout of Mr. Trump, both thumbs splayed skyward, greeting visitors inside. And there was a candidate for county commission whose brochure highlighted his ardent support for Mr. Trump in dramatically larger type than his vow to protect Sarasota’s ‘amazing beaches & parks’…Only last month, Mr. Putnam — the state’s agriculture commissioner and a genial conservative tabbed for political stardom since he won a state house seat at 22 — was ahead of Representative Ron DeSantis in fund-raising, local endorsements and opinion polls. But then Mr. Trump bestowed his formal blessing on Mr. DeSantis for the Aug. 28 primary…Mr. Putnam’s collapse and Mr. DeSantis’s rise illustrate the extraordinary clout Mr. Trump now wields in his adopted party, a power so great that the president is effectively able to decide primaries with a single tweet.”
–Jonathan Martin, “In Florida, Not All Politics Are Local, as Trump Shapes Governor’s Race,” The New York Times online, July 30, 2018