DeSantis Needs Combat in Newsom Debate

Charlie Cooke and Henry Olsen have each weighed in on the run-up to Ron DeSantis’s big debate tonight with Gavin Newsom — a debate that looms larger than it did when it was first proposed because DeSantis is now fighting to keep his presidential campaign afloat. Olsen properly analogizes it to the debate between Ronald Reagan and Robert F. Kennedy in 1967 and reviews which arguments may work better than others for DeSantis in contrasting Florida with California. But just as important, what DeSantis needs for his presidential campaign is combat.

If you’ve watched the first three Republican presidential debates, you may have noticed that DeSantis and Nikki Haley have taken divergent strategic approaches: DeSantis has done whatever possible to ignore the other people on the stage and hammer home his own message, while Haley has excelled in back-and-forth arguments, especially with Vivek Ramaswamy. Some of Haley’s moments have perhaps gone to excess in personally insulting Ramaswamy (although it is hard to disagree with even her harshest assessments), but the important thing is that they make really good television. And DeSantis’s bite-sized versions of his stump speech do not. The DeSantis approach has been a low-risk way to get through the multicandidate debate circus, and he has had his strong moments, but he has done very few things as memorable as the Haley–Ramaswamy wrangles.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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Charlie Cooke and Henry Olsen have each weighed in on the run-up to Ron DeSantis’s big debate tonight with Gavin Newsom — a debate that looms larger than it did when it was first proposed because DeSantis is now fighting to keep his presidential campaign afloat. Olsen properly analogizes it to the debate between Ronald Reagan and Robert F. Kennedy in 1967 and reviews which arguments may work better than others for DeSantis in contrasting Florida with California. But just as important, what DeSantis needs for his presidential campaign is combat.

If you’ve watched the first three Republican presidential debates, you may have noticed that DeSantis and Nikki Haley have taken divergent strategic approaches: DeSantis has done whatever possible to ignore the other people on the stage and hammer home his own message, while Haley has excelled in back-and-forth arguments, especially with Vivek Ramaswamy. Some of Haley’s moments have perhaps gone to excess in personally insulting Ramaswamy (although it is hard to disagree with even her harshest assessments), but the important thing is that they make really good television. And DeSantis’s bite-sized versions of his stump speech do not. The DeSantis approach has been a low-risk way to get through the multicandidate debate circus, and he has had his strong moments, but he has done very few things as memorable as the Haley–Ramaswamy wrangles.