We begin today with Aaron Blake of The Washington Post and his four takeaways from the launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s bid to become the Republican nominee for president of the United States.
In other words: You can have Trump — even a better version of him — without actual Trump and all the baggage and chaos that comes with him. It’s the “Trumpism without Trump” argument we’ve suspected might surface, paired with a ding on Trump’s ability to lead.
This is the conceit that makes the most sense for DeSantis’s campaign. We know that Trump has reinvented the Republican Party in his image. We know that it’s hugely difficult to actually attack Trump on the substance (that’s a recipe for excommunication from the party). Better to argue you’d be a better version of what people have signaled they already want.
Effectuating that argument is another matter, as is its sustainability.
DeSantis’s political operation already stumbled in making the case after Trump’s most high-profile recent event, the CNN town hall. Trump’s team is pressing the idea that there are real differences, including on tax policy and Social Security, despite Trump having once taken similar positions. (Trump’s super PAC launched an ad featuring DeSantis saying in 2018, “I voted contrary to him in the Congress.”) There will be pressure on DeSantis to draw his own actual contrasts. Haley devoted much of Wednesday to pushing him on precisely that, even dinging him for supposedly copying Trump’s mannerisms.