By Illinois Review
On Sunday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced in a video on X that he was suspending his presidential campaign – and he included in his post a quote from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stating that “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Except there is one major issue: Churchill never said those words and historians have proven that the quote is fake.
In 2013, the International Churchill Society, which was founded in 1968 shortly after his death – and serves as the “world’s preeminent member organization dedicated to preserving the historic legacy of Sir Winston Churchill” – published an article on their website to set the record straight and prove once and for all that Churchill never uttered the words, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
And how did the Churchill Society reach their conclusion? It was based “on careful research in the canon of fifty million words by and about Churchill, including all of his books, articles, speeches and papers.” That’s over 1.1 billion pages of information that document anything ever said or written about Churchill – and not a single page includes that quote.
Since the very first day, the DeSantis campaign was plagued by mistakes and missteps.
Last May, DeSantis announced that he was running for President on X – but unfortunately, the announcement was plagued by glitches and audio issues, making it difficult for people to hear the Florida governor’s big announcement. DeSantis was widely mocked and the announcement created an embarrassing moment for DeSantis and his campaign team – a nightmare scenario for any political candidate.
The rocky start was enough to scare away major donors – and when DeSantis was left humiliated after his botched announcement, nearly half of his major donors made the decision not to support his presidential campaign.
And in a September 2023 article in Forbes, it was revealed that 24 out of 50 of DeSantis’ major donors opted not to donate to his presidential campaign – creating a major issue for the man once considered by many to be the future of the Republican party.
But the awkward moments would continue for DeSantis.
In late May, just days after his announcement, DeSantis was mocked for what many referred to as a “terrifying laugh,” which caught social media by storm.
And on July 4th, DeSantis and his wife marched in an Independence Day parade in the pouring rain – a public relations nightmare for any campaign – as the presidential candidate and his wife were left to stand in front of a bank of cameras, soaked from the torrential downpour.
And during the Fall, DeSantis was accused of wearing boot lifts so he could appear a few inches taller during campaign rallies – after people began to question why his cowboy boots curled at the toe and why he appeared to be walking around on stage awkwardly – looking almost like a baby giraffe who’s learning to walk for the first time.
The New Hampshire primary is on January 23rd and Ambassador Nikki Haley remains in the race despite trailing President Donald Trump by double digits in both New Hampshire and her home state of South Carolina.
