The Clone
Politically speaking, Florida is one of the strangest states in the nation. How so? Because while the farther north one goes in the 50 states, the more liberal/progressive the state tends to become. Likewise, the farther south one travels, the more conservatives you run into. Not so the “Golden State.” Here, the farther north one travels, the more politically southern it becomes. And for those of us who live in the southern-most part of the state (Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade Counties) we bask in the land of Democrats and anti-Trumpers. The Jewish members of our Florida Congressional delegation (Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Ted Deutsch, and Lois Frankel) all hale from the South, while the most ultra-conservative represent districts which abut Alabama and Georgia . . . in more ways than one.
Florida is a state with a lot of conservative political clout. Consider that among those giving serious thought about making a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 - that is, presuming the former President isn’t spending the lion’s share of his time and presumed fortune in court - three (Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio as well as Governor Ron DeSantis) are generating a lot of publicity and dollars. In matter of fact, of the three, the 42-year old DeSantis garnered 21% (good for second place) in a straw poll of possible presidential candidates at this weekend’s Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) gathering held in Orlando. (n.b. Donald Trump came in first with 55% of the vote, and both Rubio and Scott were in single figures. Without Trump in the mix, DeSantis came in first with 43%, with South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem hauling in 11% for second place and Donald Trump, Jr., coming in third with 8%.) And unlike politicos like Senators Rubio, Scott, Cruz and Graham, who all went from being targets of some of then-candidate Trump’s most scurrilous, obnoxious, opprobrious barbs and then became among his most ardent supporters, DeSantis has, generally speaking, been a Trump acolyte since day one. (I guess that since DeSantis went to Yale largely on the strength of his prowess as a baseball player [at one time he was captain of the varsity], that would make him Trump’s earliest and biggest “athletic supporter.” LOL)
Interestingly, though in his final House race in 2016, then-Rep. DeSantis ran mostly against Democrats and rarely - if ever - mentioned his support for The Donald . . . despite having been one of the very first members of Congress to endorse him. However, once he became Governor of Florida in early January 2019, he began acting, sounding - even breathing - like a clone of America’s Tweeter-in-Chief. This was especially true when it came to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lion’s share of Governor DeSantis’ polling numbers deal directly with his handling (or ignoring) of the COVID-19 pandemic. While his mentor was either proclaiming that with the coming of warmer weather the virus would disappear, or overriding his medical advisors and urging that hydroxychloroquine and/or household bleach were the way to go, DeSantis was underreporting the number of COVID-19 cases in Florida; at one point during the presidential election, he simply stopped making daily reports so as not to make his mentor look bad. He also refused to close beaches or bars, and urged that public schools be immediately reopened since “as everyone knows, children don’t get COVID-19,” and refused to institute anything close to the wearing of masks in public. It got so bad that in December of last year - after Trump lost the election - DeSantis went back to making statistical reports and urging that nursing homes and senior independent living facilities receive the lion’s share of vaccine; The New Republic named DeSantis its “Scoundrel of the Year.”
So what is DeSantis’ strategy vis-à-vis a presidential campaign in 2024? Coming out of this past weekend’s CPAC gathering – where only 68% of those polled were in favor of Trump running again – DeSantis is likely putting his money on his mentor’s being either “overly occupied” (all those potential legal challenges) or legally debarred from, “beating the Democrats for a third time.” This means that at this early juncture, Governor DeSantis is running for “Mr. Congeniality,” rather than “Mr. America.” One can only wonder what Trump’s feelings were about his political future when he could only win the approval of 68% of his most loyal supporters. DeSantis is likely bright enough to understand that many Republicans are going to be looking at fresh faces in both 2022 and 2024. But for DeSantis, this will mean having to figure out who he is going to be - and what he’s going to be running on - in a post-Trump world. After several years of being the “Trumpiest of the Trumpeters,” he going to have to change both the key and the mode of his silly symphony . . . which of course carries a lot of political risk. For if there’s one thing hard-corps conservative Republicans truly crave it’s taking government back from the Democrats. Trump lost it; politicos like Cruz, Rubio, Scott, Graham and DeSantis cannot reverse that trend without altering their tune.
Coming from the ancient Greek κλώνος (klónos) meaning “twig,” cloning is a technique scientists use to make exact genetic copies of living things. Genes, cells, tissues, and even whole animals can all be cloned. Some cloning is actually done in nature; single-celled organisms like bacteria make exact copies of themselves each time they reproduce. Others, of course are made in a lab. In the world of politics, clones are created self-consciously by organisms seeking to triumph by imitating the ideas, platforms and messages of others. But just as in nature or the lab, political clones are subject to the same genetic defects, faults and flaws as their original host.
In other words: beware Governor DeSantis . . . the footsteps in which you wish to tread are filled with genetic glitches, gullies and gremlins.
Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone