Ron DeSantis for President

In my pre-presidential primary post, I provide a detailed explanation of the delegate allocation process for Oklahoma. As I mentioned in the same post, I am voting for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Oklahoma Republican Primary.

A BatesLine reader asked me why the names of so many candidates are still going to be on the ballot, even though some dropped out weeks ago. The ballot was set in stone shortly after the end of the filing period in early December. It takes time to design and print ballots and to program ballot scanners to correctly tabulate that ballot design. Absentee ballots have to go out early, particularly for Oklahomans serving in the military. There's no time to reprint ballots. Ever year we've had a presidential primary, we've had no-longer active candidates on the ballot, and we often have barely- or never-active candidates running for city, county, and state offices. Even if a candidate isn't sending mail pieces or doing robocalls, you're still allowed to vote for him or her.

You might think that all this is moot. We appear to be headed for a Trump-Biden rematch. All but three of the Republican candidates (Trump, Haley, Stuckenburg) have suspended their campaigns. There hasn't been a serious primary challenge to an incumbent president since 1992, and only in the unusual circumstances of 1976, with an unelected incumbent, did a challenge have a real shot at succeeding. The Oklahoma County Republican Party is hosting an Official Trump Victory Party tomorrow night, a significant departure from the mandatory neutrality expected of party organizations during an active primary campaign.

But in the grand sweep of American history, the idea that you must actively campaign for president is a relative novelty. In 1952, within living memory, Dwight D. Eisenhower didn't give his first campaign speech until June 4, after the last primary had already been held. Eisenhower couldn't engage in partisan political activity until then; he was still on active duty as commander of NATO forces in Europe until May 31.

Democratic Party rule changes after 1968 began the movement toward binding primaries that put a premium on expensive mass media spending, but it wasn't until the advent of Super Tuesday in 1988 that the weight of the nominating process shifted definitively from caucuses and conventions to primaries. It was not unreasonable, as recently as 1968, for the incumbent president not to bother filing for primaries or to actively campaign.

Recently, Tara Ross wrote of the reluctance with which George Washington accepted his election to the presidency. Electors were elected in some states by popular vote and were appointed by the legislature in others, and each elector, at that time, cast two ballots. Every elector cast one of his ballots for Washington, with John Adams winning a majority of the remaining ballots, scattered among 11 candidates. None of the candidates actively campaigned for office. Electors cast their ballots for Washington not knowing if he would accept.

The vision of the Framers of the Constitution was that citizens would choose a trusted and knowledgeable neighbor from their city or region to represent them in the Electoral College, and that electors from each state would deliberate and cast ballots for the public servant best equipped to head serve as Chief Executive of the federal government. No campaigning would be necessary, because the electors would have the solemn obligation and privilege to research possible candidates, their successes and failures, their strengths and flaws. Ideally, ambition-driven campaigning would be viewed as unseemly and disqualifying.

But now presidential candidates must raise tens of millions of dollars and begin campaign efforts as soon as the midterm elections are over. To win the nomination, you must win primaries, which means you must reach a vast number of primary voters who are barely paying attention, and to get their attention you need money for TV ads, direct mail, robocalls and robotexts, and people to manage all of that, plus the ground game. Underperforming expectations in an early state means the money dries up; donors are no longer willing to invest in your future prospects.

In 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis managed to win re-election by 20 percentage points in what had been a purple state (remember 2000?), while the expected "Red Wave" failed to materialize anywhere else. DeSantis used his power as governor effectively to accomplish a conservative agenda, removing two Soros-backed district attorneys who refused to prosecute crimes, dismantling DEI bureaucracies at the state's universities, re-creating the state's New College as a classical liberal arts college with a governing board filled with conservative thinkers like anti-woke campaigner Christopher Rufo, and defied the mighty Disney Corporation. While Trump was celebrating the vaccine he fast-tracked, DeSantis's appointed state Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, issued a caution for young men because of a higher risk of heart-related adverse effects.

At the heart of all of these DeSantis successes was a focus on results: understanding and wielding the authority that the voters had granted him to accomplish the priorities that he had promised the voters, hiring and appointing people with the intelligence, diligence, and character to accomplish the goals he set. You do not hear DeSantis or his fans making excuses for failure, mainly because he hasn't had many failures; DeSantis just gets things done.

DeSantis's polling lead began to disappear as partisan prosecutors began filing case after case attempting to put former president Donald Trump in prison or at least off of the ballot. Understandably but mistakenly, many Republican voters felt that the only way to defy politically motivated misuses of the justice system was to rally behind Trump. Trump and his allies attacked DeSantis's admirable record, minimizing his achievements and even making wild and ridiculous false claims (e.g., the guy who ousted two Soros DAs is somehow Soros's puppet). Trump ran to DeSantis's left on abortion, transgenderism, and woke Disney.

Trump and his followers asserted that Trump did not need to earn the 2024 GOP nomination but was owed it. DeSantis was accused of what seems to be the greatest crime in the opinion of too many: Being disloyal to Trump. To these people, it doesn't matter who would be the most effective Republican nominee and conservative chief executive: Loyalty, not to principle, not even to a party, but to one man, is the supreme virtue and disloyalty the unforgivable sin.

I rarely take time to watch movies -- I tend to unwind with a classic sitcom episode -- but a couple of months ago during a business trip, I took the time to re-watch a film I had seen and enjoyed, The Death of Stalin, Armando Ianucci's dark comedy about the power struggle around the demise of the murderous Soviet leader, starring Jeffrey Tambour as Gyorgy Malenkov and Steve Buscemi as Nikita Khrushchev. I followed it up with Downfall, a German-language dramatization of the final days of Hitler in his Berlin bunker, based in part on the account of the young woman who was the genocidal dictator's personal secretary.

Shortly after the latter film was released, there was a frequently recurring video meme that repurposed the scene where Hitler has a conniption after the generals tell him that the remaining armies are unable to come to the rescue; new subtitles were added to adapt the scene to imagine various famous people reacting to bad news, for example, Hillary Clinton learning that she is about to lose the 2008 Democratic nomination for president to Barack Obama (language warning). Hilarious adaptations aside, Downfall is an enthralling, thought-provoking film.

The common element in the two movies is that, despite the terminal weakness of Dear Leader -- Stalin has had a stroke and lost control of his bladder and bowels, Hitler reigns over less than a square mile of territory and will soon kill himself -- his minions fall all over themselves to affirm their loyalty. These appear to be men of intelligence and leadership, they see that Dear Leader is leading the nation to disaster, there are enough of them to band together and push him out of power -- and yet they cannot break free. In Death of Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov (played by Michael Palin) loudly denounces his wife for crimes against the state and justifies dead Stalin's decision to imprison and presumably execute her, right until the moment she walks back through the door of their flat.

Now, Donald Trump is no genocidal autocrat, and he did a great deal of good during his term of office, but these movies brought to mind the cult of personality that has surrounded him and which he actively encourages. Nothing Trump does is ever a mistake. It may seem like a mistake that he appointed numerous cabinet members whom he now denounces as disloyal idiots, but really he is playing 10-dimensional chess and only seeming to fail in order to expose the swamp. Elected officials, hoping for a share of the public adulation Trump enjoys, fall all over themselves to praise Trump, to claim his endorsement, and to make excuses for him. Trump made many unforced errors, but he does not show any indication of having learned from his mistakes to become a more strategic, focused, and self-disciplined leader.

The November election may very well end up as a rematch between Trump and Biden (or more likely, the Democrats will replace Biden after Trump is officially nominated by the Republican National Convention), but for now we have a much better choice on tomorrow's primary ballot.

If enough of us who understand that Ron DeSantis is the best choice vote for him, he can win delegates to the national convention. Maybe God will bless us, as He has blessed Florida, with better leadership than we deserve.