In a radio interview last week, Ron DeSantis was asked if he wanted to respond to some of Donald Trump’s insults and inappropriate nicknames.
Florida’s governor declined the question. “It’s a stupid season,” he told Fox’s Brian Kilmeade. “You know how some of this stuff goes, and obviously he does his thing and that’s just who he is.
Here in the pre-season, many candidates, potential candidates and other politicians have to make a cold calculation about whether to attack or be attacked. The man Trump calls DeSanctimonious is quite capable of hitting back hard – especially against the media – but he has chosen not to throw punches when it comes to the former president.
For one thing, DeSantis hasn’t jumped into the race yet, and — if he does run — he won’t go on until his legislative session ends in May. For another, it might not make much sense to start a mud fight this early with Trump, a recognized master of the insult game.
DESANTIS MOVES TO STRICT FLORIDA LIBEL LAW
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gives a victory speech after defeating Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Charles Crist during his election night watch party at the Tampa Convention Center on November 8, 2022, in Tampa, Florida. DeSantis was the projected winner with a double-digit lead. (Octavio Jones/Getty Images)
At the same time, there is a risk that the governor will appear too passive, or be defined by the 45th president, if he continues to turn the other cheek. He is trying to win the nomination without alienating the supporters of the clear frontrunner, and that is a difficult needle to thread.
Nikki Haley seems allergic to criticizing Trump. All her talk of moving on from 20th century politicians and mental ability tests for over-75 candidates isn’t fooling anyone, but after she became an ambassador at Trump at the UN, she also avoids a direct attack. When repeatedly asked in interviews about how her policies differ from those of Trump, she takes evasive action: “I don’t kick sideways, I kick forward” – whatever that means.
Haley is now blaming the media, saying on the “Today” show: “You’re obsessed with me talking about it.
From left to right, former Vice President Mike Pence, former President Donald Trump, President Biden, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (Getty Images)
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, asked on “Fox News Sunday” if he would deal with the national debt better than Trump, expanded the charge: “I think President Pompeo or Any conservative president is better than not only. [what] we did in the four years of the Trump administration, but Barack Obama, George Bush.”
But when Shannon Bream asked Pompeo about his CPAC slam against “celebrity leaders who follow their own brand of identity politics, those with fragile egos who refuse to admit the truth, ” he asked sideways. Hmm… what fragile ego could he be talking about?
Mike Pence has been a little more direct in chastising Trump about the events of January 6, which put his life in danger while he and his family were hiding from the public. But other than that he only says “we can do better” and brags about the achievements of the Trump-Pence administration. Trying to have it both ways rarely works in politics.
Larry Hogan, the former popular governor of Maryland, announced on Sunday that he is passing the race. “The stakes are too high for me to risk being part of another multi-car rally,” he said, allowing Trump to overcome a large field. Also, moderate Republicans had virtually no chance of to win nominations.
AMERICA, especially republicans, more divided over the UK than we thought
We are seeing a similar dynamic on the other side, where plenty of Democrats are quietly planning to run in case Joe Biden decides to serve a second term. Their problem: Biden is going to announce (probably in April), and his wife told the AP recently: “How many times does he have to say it for you to believe it? ”
But that doesn’t mean the ambitious Democrats aren’t doing anything. I wonder where all these stories about Biden being too old and much of the party not wanting him to run come from? They and their employees are behind the leak.
President Biden speaks at the House Democratic Caucus Conference in Baltimore. (Drew Anger/Getty Images)
The winner of the Iowa caucuses 2020, Pete Buttigieg, would like to run again – if not for the White House, then for a Senate seat in Michigan, where he recently moved. And the transportation secretary has been criticized for visiting a toxic train ride in Ohio, as well as the airline meltdown. Some of the criticism has been personal — Donald Trump Jr. “the gay man” on him – and Buttigieg finally decided to back off.
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“It’s very rich,” he told CNN, “to see some of these people — the former president, these Fox hosts — who are literally lifelong members of the Coast elite the card-carrying East, and the priority of economic policy has always been tax cuts. for the rich, who wouldn’t know their way around a TJ Maxx if their lives depended on it, to present themselves as if they really care about the forgotten middle of the country.”
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The art of politics is more difficult than it seems. Here we have named Republican candidates and who could try to defeat the former president while playing pattycake, barely telling a crossword about it but only in a type of Beltway code. And we have Democratic candidates who hope that their party’s president will leave office, and perhaps oust him – while singing his praises in public. It’s way early, but already shaping up to be a crazy 2024 cycle.
