© NY PostThe more Democrats take aim at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on COVID and social issues, the more they propel him to a conservative superhero on the national stage.
I say this with gratitude, not regret. Absent some catastrophe, DeSantis is going to win a second term as governor of Florida this coming November and, after that, he has a fair shot of being president. This is partly because he has done an excellent job for his state. It's also because he was unusually lucky in his enemies.
Unable to help themselves, the Democrats have aided him at every stage. They still are.
2018 was a good year for the Democratic Party, but not so good a year that the quality of its candidates didn't matter. Had the party nominated a credible centrist in Florida's toss-up gubernatorial race — Gwen Graham, for example — that candidate would not only have won the governor's mansion for the Democrats for the first time in two decades, she'd have ended DeSantis' career.
Comment: This, of course, is speculation.
© Getty Images/Sun Sentinel/KJNNikki Freed • Gwen Graham • Andrew Gillum
The Dems still had a chance to turn it around, even after he won. Ron DeSantis is a good governor, but he is not perfect, he does not get every call right, and he is as susceptible to base political temptation as any other human being. Florida has undoubtedly grown more Republican of late, but it is not Mississippi, and the Democratic Party will eventually win a big election here simply by being a sober, credible alternative to the GOP.
If the Florida Democratic Party understands this, it has a peculiar way of showing it. Instead of calmly rebuilding, it has allowed itself to become so crazy in its opposition to DeSantis, it has elevated him to national status, provided him with all the incentives he needs to play Churchill at the gates, and, by confirming that any Republican (not just Trump) will be treated terribly in the press, turned him into a rock-ribbed conservative hero.
Comment: DeSantis isn't all about reaction. He is a trailblazer in his own right.
To DeSantis' delight, his opponents have become addicted to stepping on rakes. In their desperation to take him down, the Florida Democratic Party has chased one absurd conspiracy theory after another. Its leading lights have sided with the disgraced fabulist Rebekah Jones, who falsely accused DeSantis of manipulating state COVID data; it has spread a debunked "60 Minutes" claim that there was something untoward about Florida using the state's largest supermarket chain to distribute vaccines; it has pretended that the plan to make Florida the 23rd state with a state guard augurs something sinister; and it has advertised a link that does not exist between contracts awarded to the drug company, Regneron, and donations to DeSantis' campaign.
Worse still, the party has come to believe its own rhetoric. Nikki Fried, the state's Democratic agriculture secretary (and a potential 2022 gubernatorial nominee), has taken to claiming that
"Florida isn't a free state"; to comparing DeSantis to "the leader of a communist country," to a "dictator," and, "in a lot of ways," to "Hitler"; and to charging that he represents a "danger" to "the world."In the meantime, her colleagues in the legislature have gone all out to oppose a set of COVID policies that have made Florida a magnet for disgruntled Americans and to assail a K-3 education bill that, despite the dishonest way in which it has been characterized ("Don't Say Gay"), is popular among Democrats.
The results have been predictable. DeSantis now leads his likely opponents in every reputable statewide poll, has an approval rating of around 55%, and, when compared to the hysterical descriptions to which voters are treated, appears refreshingly normal to the average American.
Bang-up job, guys.
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