National
Review Online
Wednesday,
May 24, 2023
Ron
DeSantis enters the presidential race with a successful record as
governor and the goodwill of Republicans nationally.
If he’s
taken a beating in the press and in the national polls lately, he also brings
with him formidable financial resources and organizational wherewithal. He is
clearly the candidate Donald Trump fears most, as the former president
demonstrates almost every day with some new fusillade.
The
political promise of the DeSantis campaign is that he can potentially pry MAGA
voters away from Trump while still appealing to traditional Republicans and
unite the party in a vessel that would have a good chance to win a general
election and heal some of the fractures of the Trump era.
The
just-concluded Florida legislative session added to the historic raft of
legislation the last couple of years that would have thrilled conservatives any
time over the last several decades: a heartbeat bill, constitutional carry,
school choice, tort reform, E-Verify, tax relief, pushback on ESG, and on and
on.
There
are two main things that have made DeSantis distinctive. First, his response to
Covid. He had the independent-mindedness and backbone to forge a different,
better path that avoided the excesses of the lockdowns and mandates of the
federal government and other states.
Second,
his zest for fighting back in the culture war and using his control of the
government as an instrument. The restrictions on gender ideology and CRT in
public schools are appropriate and his reforms of higher education, as a
general matter, welcome and overdue. But some of the higher-ed measures present
free-speech issues. And his high-profile fight with Disney has divided
conservatives. The company, on the one hand, exercises government power for its
own benefit in the form of its special district, and DeSantis has targeted that
power. On the other hand, the governor has retaliated against a private company
for something it said (i.e., making a pledge to demand repeal of a bill to keep
schools from teaching K–3 kids inappropriate sexual material).
In
addition, of course, DeSantis has stood out for his combative interactions with
reporters and the enmity he has drawn from the media. Both are invaluable
currency in the GOP, but DeSantis is also clearly a person of substance who
does his homework and has excelled at the practical elements of his job even as
he’s earned a national following.
The
question is whether he can recover from his downdraft over the last several
months — which will now include a spate of negative publicity over his
announcement on Twitter that was marred by embarrassing technical issues —
and topple a Donald Trump who looks as strong as ever. DeSantis has talked
about the GOP’s “culture of losing” and how governing is a serious business —
both obvious, and justified, slaps at Trump. He’ll have to be more explicit now
that he’s in the race (including acknowledging that Trump lost in 2020) and
make a case against Trump that is broader and deeper than electability.
He’ll
need to offer Republican primary voters, as the great Phyllis Schlafly put it
in a different context, a choice, not an echo.
The
conventional wisdom, when it doesn’t say that Trump is simply inevitable, holds
that it’s a two-man race. If that’s the way it has looked, primary campaigns
often have unexpected twists and turns. How the candidates run will matter. Now
that he’s finally out of his half-in-half-out limbo, DeSantis has the
opportunity to make his case to voters, and see if he can fulfill his promise.
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