Waiting for Ron

Another week in the spring of 2023, another round of claims that the 2024 Republican primary is over before it has even begun. As regular readers will know, this newsletter’s firmest 2024 conviction is that it’s far too soon for such definitive declarations. Trump may not be like other presidential contenders, but anyone ready to hand out prizes should remind themselves who was leading the pack at this stage in previous cycles. Driving the sense that it’s all but over is a growing consensus that Ron DeSantis doesn’t have what it takes: he lacks charisma, he doesn’t…

Another week in the spring of 2023, another round of claims that the 2024 Republican primary is over before it has even begun. As regular readers will know, this newsletter’s firmest 2024 conviction is that it’s far too soon for such definitive declarations. Trump may not be like other presidential contenders, but anyone ready to hand out prizes should remind themselves who was leading the pack at this stage in previous cycles.

Driving the sense that it’s all but over is a growing consensus that Ron DeSantis doesn’t have what it takes: he lacks charisma, he doesn’t know what ideological lane to occupy, he has made the fatal mistake of trying to beat Trump at his own game. Writing for The Spectator, Dave Seminara makes a compelling case against writing the Florida governor off.

That is not to say that DeSantis isn’t bogged down right now. The New York Times polling guru Nate Cohn dedicates his newsletter this week to the question of why he has struggled of late. I think Cohn gets to the nub of what DeSantis has had going for him until now, and what he must figure out to turn things around.

Of DeSantis’s broad appeal until now, Cohn writes:

Mr. DeSantis’s varying campaigns against everything from coronavirus restrictions to gender studies curriculums weren’t extraordinarily popular, at least not in terms of national polling, but it was a type of political gold nonetheless. It let him channel the passions of the Republican base and get on Fox News without offending bourgeoise conservative sensibilities on race, immigration and gender. In fact, many elite conservatives disliked “woke” and coronavirus restrictions just like the rank-and-file. Even some Democrats sympathized with his positions. As a result, he won re-election in Florida in a landslide. Democratic turnout was abysmal. This combination of base and elite appeal made him a natural candidate to lead an anti-Trump coalition.

More recently, though, DeSantis has started to wrestle with thornier issues that, when it comes to building an electoral coalition, bring clear trade-offs. Abortion is one prominent example, as is foreign policy and the business versus culture dilemma encapsulated by his fight with Disney. At this stage, these dilemmas matter far more than some vague, largely untested notion that the governor lacks charisma. Especially given that DeSantis has proved himself to be a very successful politician in a big, closely watched, competitive state.

One interesting detail in Cohn’s write-up: DeSantis performs most strongly among moderate voters in primary polling. That is in spite of the areas in which DeSantis has moved to the right of Trump in recent months. At this point it’s probably worth noting that the candidate perceived by the voters as the more moderate of the viable options won the Republican primary in 2008, 2012 and, yes, 2016, when Trump was seen as less ideological and more pragmatic than his rivals.

One difficultly for candidates is that the definition of moderate is ever-changing, and not something political elites and the electorate always agree on. Take Trump’s trade and foreign policy positions in 2016, viewed as dangerously counter-consensus in Washington but seen as far more reasonable among voters. During the pandemic, DeSantis zigged while expert opinion zagged and found himself to be vindicated — and rewarded by voters. But, as Cohn observes, and I have pointed out before, the political power of the pandemic is waning fast — and a war on woke may not be enough to make up for it. DeSantis’s team are not fools, and they will surely realize this.

Peter Thiel said as much in his comments on DeSantis this week. “I think DeSantis would make a terrific president if he’s the Republican nominee. I will strongly support him in 2024,” said the billionaire, before offering some constructive criticism: “But I do worry that focusing on the woke issue as ground zero is not quite enough.”

He’s right. DeSantis may privately agree. Publicly, meanwhile, he points out an obviously but important fact: that he is not yet a candidate.

On our radar

TANDEN IN AT THE WHITE HOUSE Neera Tanden will replace Susan Rice as the president’s domestic policy advisor, the White House announced today. In 2021, Tanden was poised to run Biden’s Office of Management and Budget but her nomination was shipwrecked by her rather unfiltered approach to social media. Her new role does not require Senate confirmation.

TEACHERS DECLARE WAR ON CAPITALISM Teachers’ unions haven’t covered themselves in glory in recent years. During the pandemic, they fought to stay home and let their students’ test scores slide — even after vaccinations meant there was no real risk to returning to the classroom. But Colorado’s teachers have a novel solution to the perception that their unions aren’t as focused as they should be on the day job: declare war on capitalism. A resolution passed by the Colorado Education Association declared:

“CEA believes that capitalism requires exploitation of children, public schools, land, labor and/or resources. Capitalism is in opposition to fully addressing systemic racism (the school to prison pipeline), climate change, patriarchy, (gender and LGBTQ disparities), education inequality and income inequality.”

Hey, teachers, leave them kids alone!

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You’ve been Dunn, Tara

Cockburn speculated whether Joe Biden was a bad feminist this week, after a report in Politico suggested he was set to rehire TJ Ducklo for 2024.

Former press secretary Ducklo resigned in disgrace after screaming at a female Politico reporter, Tara Palmeri, due to a story she was working on about him dating a journalist, Alexi McCammond. Ducklo claimed Palmeri was doing the story because she was “jealous” that an unidentified man in the past had “wanted to fuck” McCammond “and not you.” Oddly the Politico story about Ducklo’s imminent return quoted various Bidenworld women, such as senior advisor Anita Dunn, but not Palmeri, their former employee.

At her new venture Puck, Palmeri tells her side — and unmasks the tale’s true villain. “I always thought that it could have been resolved if Ducklo and I had sat down together and a real apology was exchanged,” she writes. “Instead, Ducklo sent me a two-line email apology and… Anita Dunn called my editor to argue that I broke our ‘off the record’ agreement by outlining the incident in an internal memo at the time. For a full month, I felt shunned by the White House, and by Dunn, who warned young press aides about reporters who break off the record, I was told, winking and nodding about what happened between me and Ducklo. ‘Reporters can’t be trusted,’ Dunn said, according to a witness.”

Dunn may be right that some reporters can’t be trusted — but does that justify taking a Mean Girls approach to one that her colleague had unduly threatened to “destroy?” Between this and the insidious image rehab her firm did for TikTok earlier this year, Cockburn thinks further questions could be asked about the quality of “advice” Dunn offers the president…

–From Cockburn’s Gossip newsletter

Walensky resigns

Rochelle Walensky will leave the CDC in June. Announcing her resignation, she said: “I took on this role with the goal of leaving behind the dark days of the pandemic and moving the CDC — and public health — into a much better and more trusted place.” The news comes days after the White House ended Covid-19 vaccine requirements for federal employees and other workers and soon after the WHO officially declared that the pandemic was no longer a global emergency.

–OW