Yesterday, Salena Zito published a lengthy profile of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, covering some of his career successes and worldview. It was by no means a full biography, but it was pretty interesting.
Here’s an excerpt:
Now, the 44-year-old, whose memoir, “The Courage to Be Free,” is out Feb. 28, is under intense scrutiny for any sign he is going to throw his hat into the ring for the Republican nomination. DeSantis is not ready to say if he is running for president — only that he is focused on the current legislative session in front of him, and he wants to get done the things that he promised.
The former congressman narrowly won his first run for governor in 2018, but became the shining beacon for the Republicans in the party’s otherwise underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterms.
He has done so by publicly tangling with Disney over their condemnation of the Florida State legislature’s “Parental Rights in Education” bill, dubbed the “Don’t say Gay” bill by critics, and managing the cleanup after the devastation of Hurricane Ian.
Even President Biden was forced to admit DeSantis’s emergency efforts were “remarkable.”
“I don’t promise things I can’t deliver,” DeSantis said, referencing his recent education reform. It includes fighting for “education, not indoctrination” by curbing ideology: requiring state universities and colleges report resources devoted to critical race theory and blocking an AP high-school course on African-American history that, his administration has said, “runs contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.”
“Virtually every major institution in our country is attempting to impose a ‘progressive’ agenda on society,” the governor tells The Post. “Florida strives to protect the ability of its citizens to live their lives free from this agenda being shoved down their throats. “
Now, he is giving Trump a run for his money in nearly every national and state poll about a possible presidential run. He is also leading over Biden in a head-to-head match-up.
It’s obviously that last line in the blockquote that triggered the subsequent Truth Social post from Trump a little while ago.
Trump brought up the parts of DeSantis’s resume that Zito did not, and suggested that the governor is secretly hiding an agenda that does not match MAGA priorities. He’s already been calling him a RINO and does so again in the Truth post:
The battle continues to heat up even before it is actually joined. Frankly I hate it, and I definitely don’t think it’s necessary or in any way helpful to America for the 2024 GOP hopefuls to burn each other to the ground so completely.
I didn’t like it when Trump did it in 2016, either, and wrote about it here. But it won’t be just Trump. The others will all be vicious in their own ways, and will try to burn Trump down too, but with sneakier methods and sometimes by using the liberal media for help.
Again, I hate it. And again, I don’t think it has to be done. But they ain’t gonna listen to me, and you better knwo they’ll all be doing it. All of them. It’s a politics thing. Trump is just good at it, for better or worse.
OPEN THREAD II
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