I wanted to be for Ron DeSantis. I admired his record in Florida, especially in the issues he targets. Sure I didn’t quite like the way he handled Disney, but I greatly appreciated his standing up to them, and playing hardball.* I think running on a “Let DeSantis do for America what he’s done for Florida” is a fairly compelling campaign theme. Certainly as compared to an alternative of Gavin Newsom, “Don’t let Gavin Newsom do for America what he’s done for California”, complete with massive ad campaigns showing the homeless squalor, the rampant drug use, and the flash mob crime sprees that are ongoing. Finishing with the Coup de grâce, a video of a family getting into their minivan and towing a U-haul behind them crossing the “You are now leaving California” sign on the highway.

Yet DeSantis has never picked up steam. To be sure, the Democrats have taken us where I fear we’ll never come back from–the use of the criminal and civil law against their leading political opponent. It’s no accident that this is when Trump really started to cement his rise: once again his behavior was not the focus of the Republican base, but rather the shocking behavior of his political opponents.** But we can’t give DeSantis a pass here. His strategy was flawed from the beginning: basically play prevent defense and wait till you’re the last man standing against Trump. DeSantis knows he can’t win the general without keeping the hard-core Trump supporters on-board (probably around 35% of the Republican base) and yet he was unwilling to compete for the traditional Reagan conservatives (of which contrary to the media claims are not all dead, and they’re certainly not limited to never-Trumpers). DeSantis therefore, created the lane for Nikki Haley. And say what you want about Ms. Haley–but she is aggressive, smart, and willing to fight for her political goals. And she gratefully seized that lane, one she was naturally postured for. She of course was also helped by the world events collapsing with the terrible weakness of the Biden administration. Suddenly foreign policy seems a bit more important, and her time at the U.N. certainly helped. But Mr. DeSantis’ initial calling of the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” was a mistake that he made. While he somewhat backed down from that comment, he has yet to make a case to the “strong America” conservative wing that believes in peace through strength. You can think of this three person race as something like this:

With my ChatGPT assistant, I generated a representative Median Voter distribution type chart with the single dimension being establishment vs anti-establishment (even though I prefer traditional conservative vs populist conservative). Both Haley and DeSantis hope to get to one alternative to Trump, and hope not to alienate the hard Trump voters (for the general election) while winning the soft Trump voters. But Democratic prosecutorial mischief has solidified the softer-Trump into a more hardened Trump, and world events have made a hawkish Haley look more compelling. This week’s major money and talent endorsement from Americans For Prosperity to Nikki Haley is just about the nail in the coffin for Mr. DeSantis. Which makes tonight his do or die moment.

Tonight’s debate between Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis is critical for both men’s presidential ambitions. Everyone knows Mr. Newsom is already running for president, the only question is whether it is 2024 or 2028. And Mr. Newsom is tailor made for a DeSantis campaign to contrast each governor’s performance. They will talk past each other, as Mr. Newsome will ignore the issues that plague California and will instead focus on how radical DeSantis is, on abortion, race, homosexuality and all the cultural issues. He will show himself to be the fighter that progressives want, while trying to temper the extremes of his own image. Mr. DeSantis will have the platform to share his vision of making America more like Florida. Both men will likely be more positively received by their respective parties after the debate. Mr. Newsom probably wins the most, as he has almost nothing to lose, and Mr. DeSantis must know this is do or die. My advice to Mr. DeSantis. Yes, hammer the progressive record in California and contrast with your own. But you are speaking to Republican primary voters, so look at that chart above and figure out how you can pivot to win some of the traditional conservatives. Many want to vote for you, but until you can figure out that Russia is the bad guy and needs to lose in Ukraine, and there is a link between Russia’s success and our #1 strategic threat of China, you are going to shrink and Mrs. Haley will continue to rise. It’s up to you to want to win–so stop with the prevent defense.

* Disney certainly deserved it, and it is not just Ron DeSantis that is now pummeling their bottom line. They now are acknowledging that they’re policies have harmed their reputation with segments of the population, e.g., normal non-progressive Americans.

** Sure Mr. Trump’s rhetoric was red-meat with the “Lock her up” chants in 2016. But note that Mr. Trump never crossed that line, when clearly Hillary Clinton’s treatment of classified info merited legal punishment. But partisan Democratic prosecutors have shown no similar self-control in their desire to destroy Mr. Trump, pursuing dubious legal theories that never would be pursued against anyone that was not named Donald Trump. The most serious is the classified documents issue, but the justice department is charging Donald Trump while letting Joe Biden off the hook! Legally there is a case for obstruction, but the underlying issues were the same. As I’ve said earlier, this should have been for the voters to decide.