(C) Common Dreams
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Ron DeSantis Is Still Trapped In Trump’s Shadow. Will He Ever Get Out? [1]
['Condé Nast', 'Eric Lutz']
Date: 2023-05-15 18:37:22.992000+00:00
It was probably the best case scenario for Ron DeSantis.
He and Donald Trump, who reinforced his GOP frontrunner status with a primetime CNN showcase last week, were expected to hold dueling campaign events in Iowa over the weekend. But the former president abruptly canceled his planned rally over storm threats, allowing the Florida governor to tour the state on his own—and to take some light swings at his fellow Floridian for missing out on a “beautiful night” in the caucus state. “It’s been a great day for us,” DeSantis told Republicans during a stop in Des Moines.
“At the end of the day, governing is not about entertaining,” DeSantis said in one of several digs at Trump over the weekend. “Governing is not about building a brand or talking on social media and virtue signaling. It’s ultimately about winning and about producing results. And that’s what you’ve done in Iowa and that’s what we’ve done in Florida.”
It was an effort by the Florida governor to gain back some of the ground he’s lost to Trump in recent weeks, as he prepares to formally enter the 2024 fray—a move that could come in a matter of days. But the fact that DeSantis’s stronger-than-usual performance in the Hawkeye State was predicated on his rival's no-show is telling: While he cast himself as Republicans’ “positive alternative” during his barnstorming trip, the GOP remains the party of Trump—and it’s not clear DeSantis has what it takes to change that. “He hasn’t done very well,” Trump said of DeSantis in a Messenger interview published Monday, which was partly a victory lap following his CNN town hall and partly a roast of his budding rival.
“He’s got no personality,” Trump said. “And I don’t think he’s got a lot of political skill.”
Part of DeSantis' problem stems from his presentation as the “reasonable” Republican alternative to Trump—an image that is undermined by his careful attempt to stay in the good graces of MAGA die-hards. “He’s going to be boxed in by the fact that he’s basically making an electability pitch,” as the anti-Trump Republican strategist Sarah Longwell told Politico Monday. “And the trouble with the electability pitch is you’ve got to say, ‘Donald Trump lost and I can win.’” The more DeSantis has tried to have it both ways politically—playing into doubts about the 2020 election, while also casting himself as a no-nonsense policymaker—the less he’s gotten out of it. “If a candidate can’t dispose of a fake issue like who won the election,” Republican consultant Alex Conant told Politico, “how can voters expect them to handle the real issues?”
GOP voters obviously have a tremendous appetite for candidates who eschew real issues for fake ones. Trump’s election in 2016 made that clear, and DeSantis’s popularity in Florida—where he’s built a brand as a warrior against all things “woke"—has underscored it. But the governor's appeal may be limited by his pet preoccupations, particularly his protracted feud with Disney, which was the focus of a long American Conservative profile published Monday: “A lot of these fights are really foundational fights about what it means to be an American,” DeSantis told the outlet of his year-long-and-running pissing contest with the entertainment company. “So, it’s something that we fight for.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/ron-desantis-iowa-visit
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