If the 2024 presidential election were the Kentucky Derby, the phase we’ve just entered would be the contestants’ first pass by the grandstand. They’re out of the starting gate, and witnesses are getting their first good look at how the race is shaping up.
As radio talker and pundit Erick Erickson writes Tuesday, people are just now beginning to invest more than passing glances. Soon, they’ll raise their binoculars.
With that in mind, here’s where the reliably left-leaning editorial board of the Miami Herald wants your attention focused:
The slogan is catchy: “Make America Florida.
On the GOP presidential primary trail, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ brand has been of a competent governor who gets conservative priorities implemented with unprecedented efficiency …
But DeSantis’ “Florida Blueprint” has cracks. …
DeSantis’ track record in Florida should come with a warning to the rest of the country: Although he has excelled at pushing his party to pass partisan policies, he hasn’t been tested on his ability to unite or lead in times of deep division.
We shall stipulate that, as governor, DeSantis has enjoyed a Republican supermajority in the Legislature, one he has masterfully coached to achieve his policy priorities.
If the Herald thinks this sort of political behavior is unique to DeSantis and the GOP, it must have slept through Barack Obama’s first 11 months in the Oval Office, when he whipped Senate Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority to pass his namesake health insurance bill.
And some of us in this audience are old enough to remember (well, sort of remember; we were in junior high school) President Lyndon Johnson bullying supermajority Democrats into passing his Great Society boondoggle.
But, sure. Have it your way. Ron DeSantis recast Florida in his image because of some sort of political deus ex machina. That’s how the Herald sees it, anyway:
Despite Florida’s previous status as a “purple” swing state, its government is deep red. DeSantis faces no real opposition thanks to a Florida Democratic Party that can’t figure out how to win elections and the state’s rightward shift in recent years.
Note that disclaimer buried in the prose designed to diminish DeSantis’ achievements: Florida Democrats no longer know how to win elections. Hmmm. This deserves further review … in a moment.
The board further declares the concentration of GOP power has resulted in hasty, “sloppy” bill writing that produces vague laws “ripe for court challenges.” The Herald notes with unvarnished glee the occasions sympathetic judges sided with plaintiffs (while conceding the state could prevail — and several times has prevailed — on appeal).
The sage opinion leaders at the Herald treat these challenges and occasional setbacks as unique to, and a product of, Florida Republicans’ legislative supermajority. As though Democrats hatching schemes on closely divided Capitol Hill never pass bills of dubious constitutional merit, and Democrat presidents never get their overzealous executive orders tossed by the courts.
Oh, wait. Not so fast, my friend.
Nonetheless, the board sees a DeSantis-invented method to this aggressiveness.
[T]he point is that a DeSantis presidency would push the limits of the U.S. Constitution through laws, if he can get them passed, and executive orders. Court battles over a president’s policies have become normal in America’s polarized politics. The difference with DeSantis is that legal fights don’t seem to be a consequence of his actions, but the goal.
Well, yeah. With DeSantis attempting to root out the progressive status quo, it’s a tale of eggs and omelets, as the Tampa Bay Times reported in January.
April Schiff, a Tampa Republican political consultant who represents Hillsborough County in the state party, said lawsuits have become part of political life in a highly divided time.
Schiff disagreed that DeSantis is out to solely win the messaging war, but rather is working to win cases and reverse precedents that have impeded Republican priorities.
“It’s smart,” she said. “He lays out a pathway to say, ‘This is what we’re going to do. … We can challenge that and set a new precedent.’ ”
So, as promised, back to the Herald’s lament about Florida Democrats having lost the winning touch, and the state’s rightward drift.
Here’s a wild thought: Perhaps Florida voters haven’t drifted right so much as they have been shoved in that direction. This could be crazy talk, but maybe voters in the Sunshine State, having listened to the claims and evaluated the leftward positions of Democrat candidates and their surrogates, have turned the other way.
The Herald’s editorial board doubts the “Florida Blueprint” is “an effective way to lead a diverse nation.” They said the same thing about Ronald Reagan’s conservatism in 1979. Then the Gipper won, commanded the White House’s bully pulpit, and began to bend the course of history to his vision. Sometimes, history repeats. If we’re lucky.
Barely a generation ago, Florida was the purplest of states. Since then, only one party has championed the issues that push Sunshine State voters’ buttons: free enterprise, low taxes, minimal regulation, property rights, law and order, parental rights, defense of childhood innocence, school choice, liberty … and — just so we’re clear — it’s not Democrats.
Florida may be special, but it is scarcely unique. If the Florida Blueprint means declaring the embrace of freedom and advancement of conservative principles that turned a state from purple to hot crimson for a national audience, we like the carrier’s chances for success.
