He isn't a declared candidate for president, and yet I wonder if we're paying enough attention to the fact that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is nevertheless the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president, and perhaps the favorite for the White House itself.
Of course, I'm not talking about polling data. At this stage, those things are as useless as ever. Want to find one showing former President Trump obliterating DeSantis in Iowa? You can. Want to find one showing DeSantis leading Trump among likely voters in both Iowa and New Hampshire? You can. Want to find polls showing President Biden beating Trump but losing to DeSantis? You can. Or how about one that says the complete opposite – Biden beating DeSantis but losing to Trump? You can.
At this point, polls provide interesting fodder for the commentariat, prognosticators, and content-starved 24-hour news channels, but little else. If you really want to know who is currently leading the field, ignore the polls and pay attention to the candidates themselves. Who are they firing on, taking shots at, desperately seeking to generate a response from? Viewed through that lens, there's no question that Ron DeSantis is perceived – by the candidates – as the frontrunner.
Nikki Haley:
Vivek Ramaswamy:
Asa Hutchinson:
And the most aggressive DeSantis antagonist is the former president himself:
Even setting aside Trump's reputation for petulance and juvenility, this is just strange behavior for the supposed leader of the Republican Party. What DeSantis has accomplished in Florida is no secret. His leadership has turned a purple state – one that voted for both terms of the far-left presidency of Barack Obama – to bright red. The state now boasts a near half-million voter registration edge for Republicans, has voted the Democrats out of every statewide office, delivered a Republican supermajority in the legislature, and just produced one of the most astoundingly substantial and successful legislative sessions in the country's history.
If Trump really thought he was the frontrunner, he would be applauding DeSantis, encouraging other governors to follow his lead, and promising to bring similar success to the national level. Instead, he's bizarrely pretending none of that is happening in Florida, is complaining that DeSantis is "too pro-life," and is attacking the governor as a naïve fool. It reeks of pettiness and desperation, and surely leaves even Trump apologists asking themselves (internally, of course), "why?"
And then there's this: Democrat activists, still posing as "Republican strategists" who soured on the MAGA movement, are suddenly less concerned with Trump. They have a new boogeyman to despise:
[The Lincoln Project's Rick] Wilson began by attacking DeSantis's personality, claiming that he "doesn't like humans, has to pretend to be human." He insisted DeSantis has a "mean streak." Yes, Rick Wilson said that, without any introspection about his own behavior.
In contrast, despite being sure to get on record that he dislikes everything about Trump, Wilson argued Trump does have "charisma" and "energy."
In a particularly gruesome metaphor, Wilson then predicted that in a debate, Trump would "tear Ron DeSantis's head off and kick it around like a soccer ball."
Only the willfully blind would ignore the common thread here:
Even the team that is running the White House and operating the puppet we call President Joe Biden seems to know:
For his part, I think it's worth noting that DeSantis is, for the most part, withholding direct fire on any of his fellow Republicans, including former President Trump. Instead, he is trying to focus on showing up progressivism and its modern prophets:
Call me crazy, but is that kind of message discipline not precisely what you might expect from… a frontrunner?
