By Philip Klein
Friday, February 10, 2023
Florida governor Ron DeSantis is most known for his
relatively early abandonment of Covid restrictions and aggressive battles
against wokeness in all its manifestations. But he entered politics before
today’s culture-war battles were front and center, when the Tea Party was still
strong, and when a desire to shrink government was what separated the real
conservatives from the RINO wing.
In a post reacting to the Social Security and Medicare
dustup between Republicans and President Biden during the State of the Union,
Josh Barro reminds his readers that as a member of the House of
Representatives, DeSantis not only supported Paul Ryan-style proposals to
overhaul entitlements but actually voted for conservative alternatives
that went further. Much of Barro’s post is about how Biden could
exploit this record in a face-off against DeSantis. But it’s likely that
DeSantis will face these attacks well before any theoretical general-election
match-up — from Donald Trump.
Trump has consistently rejected the idea of entitlement
reform, which he sees as a political loser. Currently, he is lecturing
Republicans that they shouldn’t cut a single penny out of Social Security and
Medicare. He reiterated that point again yesterday and diverted
attention to much smaller items in the federal budget, such as foreign aid,
gender-ideology instruction in the military, illegal immigration, and “waste
and fraud.”
It will not only be irresistible for Trump to attack
DeSantis for his past positions on entitlements but a gambit with established
precedent in a Republican primary. While people remember Rick Perry’s 2012
campaign for his infamous “oops” moment, his major collapse in polls came well before that, after
Mitt Romney started pummeling him for calling Social Security a “Ponzi
scheme” that should be turned over to the states. Perry was polling at over 30
percent in the RealClearPolitics average when Romney’s attacks started in mid September
and dropped into the single digits by the time of his “oops” debate in early
November.
Trump attacking DeSantis on this issue would likely serve
several purposes. One, it would help him create suspicions among older voters
who constitute a large segment of the Republican-primary electorate, as well as
those who like to believe the idea that foreign aid and fraud are what’s really
driving our $31 trillion debt. Two, it would help raise doubts about DeSantis’s
electability, which right now is one of the best assets the governor has in a
race against Trump. Three, since the media would agree with Trump on this
issue, they would amplify all of his attacks in a way that they have not with
his other barrages against DeSantis to this point.
The attacks would also put DeSantis in a difficult spot.
He was undeniably right a decade ago about the desperate need to overhaul these
programs. But the party has moved in a different direction since then, thanks
in no small part to Trump’s influence, and there is little to be gained
politically by reiterating those stances (beyond earning kudos from spending
hawks like myself) — and there is much to lose. If Romney was able to land
blows by attacking Perry from the left on Social Security during the peak of
the Tea Party era, there’s no doubt Trump could gain ground by hitting DeSantis
given the current composition of the GOP.
But if DeSantis backs away from his prior positions, it’s
a blow to his image as a conviction politician, and makes him look much more
like a political opportunist — a guy who wanted to be seen as a spending hawk
when the Tea Party was popular with the base, but wants to be seen as a culture
warrior now that the party has become more populist.
DeSantis obviously has some degree of experience
navigating this issue as governor of the state with a significant retiree
population. In 2022, he won voters over 65 by 28 points, while Trump only beat Biden among Florida
seniors by ten. But Social Security and Medicare are both federal
programs that the governor does not have a role in, so that isn’t really a true
test of how he’d withstand months of attacks over his past positions.
Either way, the attacks from Trump are coming. As
DeSantis gears up for an inevitable presidential run, he better be prepared.
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