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DeSantis' New Book Gives Away His Platform

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has a new book out. It is entitled The Courage to Be Free. It is all about the government banning stuff in order for the people to be free. Kind of "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." As a graduate of Yale (magna cum laude, no less) in history, DeSantis is likely to be familiar with George Orwell's 1984, and so is aware of the rather clear parallel.

The book reads like his presidential platform, which makes sense, because that is what it is. Here are some takeaways:

The New York Times' book critic Jennifer Szalai reviewed the book and said it reads like it was written by ChatGPT, in part due to its total lack of charisma or sense of humor. It is strong on platitudes found all over the Internet but weak on new ideas. What is also noteworthy is how DeSantis has changed since he was first elected to Congress. He was then a libertarian and a founding member of the Freedom Caucus. The Freedom Caucus was founded to oppose government power. Now DeSantis thinks that the more power the government has, the better, so he can use it to punish his enemies. For example, he wants to give the president the power to fire about 50,000 top civil servants if the president thinks they are too woke.

The book also rails against the legacy media. Apparently, Fox doesn't count as legacy media, since it gets off unscathed. Maybe the fact that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp owns the publisher of his book played a role here. We dunno. As we have mentioned many times already this year (and will continue to mention for at least another one), DeSantis is smart. For example, he clearly understands that the base loves to see folks they dislike being bullied and he may well try to out-bully Trump. He even tried to bully the Ivy League and to show how strong he is by writing: "I could withstand seven years of indoctrination in the Ivy League," as if that makes him special. It must have slipped his mind that some other famous people also withstood it, like justices Samuel Alito (Yale Law School), Neil Gorsuch (Harvard Law School), Brett Kavanaugh (Yale Law School), John Roberts (Harvard Law School), and Clarence Thomas (Yale Law School). But they don't have the courage to run for president, like he does.

For the sake of completeness, we note a few things that the book omits and which are common in political memoirs written for campaign purposes. There is (next to) nothing about DeSantis' youth, his parents, what values his parents instilled in him, his sister, his friends, his courtship, his wedding, or anything else that might detract from his image as a robot with code to destroy woke built into its ROM (Read Only Memory) that can't be changed. If this is an indication of what's to come, he is going to make Mitt Romney look warm and fuzzy. And he is going to fail the beer test miserably. (V)

Primary Polling Is All over the Map

Here are the major polls taken since November of a Donald Trump vs. Ron DeSantis primary race. The ones with an asterisk show Trump's share of the Trump + DeSantis vote in a multiway poll.

Trump vs. DeSantis polls; at one extreme is an Emerson poll that has Trump at 55%, at the other extreme is an Ipsos poll that has him at 25%, and the other 16 are pretty evenly distributed among those two endpoints

So we know in a Trump vs. DeSantis primary, Trump will get somewhere between 25% and 55% of the vote. Good to know.

So, what's going on here? The other Nate takes a stab at what the discrepancy is not:

If it is not all those things, what is it? Scores of 55±4 and 26±4 are not compatible. Not even close. And in FiveThirtyEight's pollster ratings, Emerson College gets an A- and Monmouth University gets an A, so it is not great pollsters vs. crummy pollsters. As we pointed out 2 weeks ago, early polls do matter, but how can we make sense of such a spread?

One difference between the polls is that some pollsters try to simulate random-digit dialing as best they can online. These are probability polls. They get very large lists of e-mail addresses from some organization that has very large lists and randomly pick a few thousand e-mail addresses and send them a message asking they want to participate in a political poll. Of course, the source of the list matters. Netflix would be a better source for a cross section of the Republican electorate than say, Christianity Today Magazine, but folks with the biggest and most useful lists might also be the least inclined to share them (unless enough money changed hands). Other pollsters place banner ads that say "Click here to take a poll" on websites. This mix depends hugely on where the ads are placed. Demographic normalization helps, but an ad on the NRA Website is going to get a different mix than on foxnews.com. If you look at the chart above, the probability pollsters exhibit less spread than the nonprobability pollsters, so maybe this is a clue. This suggests that Trump is well below 50%. Various other studies have shown that something like 30% of Republicans are Always Trumpers, so the chart is at least consistent with that. Most likely, different pollsters ended up with very different pools of potential respondents due to how the pools were assembled. And then there is the issue of the "shy" Trump voters. It is possible that depending on how the respondents are gathered, one gets more or fewer of them.

Another piece of data the other Nate looked at is Trump's share of the 2024 Trump vs. DeSantis polls compared to Trump's actual share of the 2016 primaries. In a number of states, he is running behind his 2016 actual share of the vote:

Trump share in 2024 vs 2016 in six states; he's down 14 in Indiana, 6 in North Carolina, 5 in New Hampshire and 1 in Mississippi. He's up 1 in South Carolina and 2 in Tennessee.

Again, this is early in the season, before DeSantis has even announced, and way before both candidates bring out the big guns and start throwing mud. What happens when Trump calls DeSantis a pedophile and DeSantis calls Trump the biggest loser in American history? The article's very tentative conclusion is that Trump's support is in the 30s, but that could change rapidly when the shooting starts as DeSantis has never been tested on the national stage and Trump has never faced an opponent as smart, focused, and eager to hit below the belt as DeSantis. (V)

Reagan Is Dead, but What about Reaganism?

Ronald Reagan was a huge supporter of free markets, untrammeled trade, and limited government. That far outlasted the Gipper, continuing to dominate Republican politics until Donald Trump came along arguing for managed trade, tariffs, and using big government to achieve political goals. Reaganism clearly does not dominate Republican thinking now, but is it completely dead and buried along with St. Ronnie? Nikki Haley wants to find out.

Her candidacy is a weird mix of Reaganism with a light Trump sauce over it. She knows she can't oppose Trump directly, but maybe she can try to sell Reaganism, call it Trumpism, and hope the base is too stupid to see these two philosophies are contradictory. You can't favor both free trade and using tariffs to block trade at the same time.

Consequently, she is not a perfect test of Reaganism vs. Trumpism, but it is the best we have at the moment. All the other potential Republican presidential candidates are very Trumpy. In fact, Ron DeSantis is trying to be Trumpier than Trump. Haley's candidacy might give a clue as to whether Reaganism might make a comeback after Trump has eaten has last Big Mac.

Among other things, Haley is singing praise for some of Reagan's greatest hits, such as "Russia is evil," big tax cuts are crucial for a healthy economy (at least for rich people), and government is too big and powerful. That is a different message than it is necessary to use the full power of big government to batter woke corporations into submission. She also wants to link immigration to inflation. After all, both words begin with the letter "i." And more immigrants mean more people buying eggs, thus driving up the price. Or something.

Foreign policy is the area where Haley differs from Trump the most and it is her policy strength as a result of her time as ambassador to the United Nations. We can easily imagine a debate in which the moderator asks each candidate to summarize his or her foreign policy in two words (because the base doesn't have a very long attention span, certainly not for foreign policy). Haley goes first and says: "Putin bad." Then Trump says: "Putin good." DeSantis then goes off topic and says: "Woke bad."

Of course, if Haley wants to get a lot of votes so DeSantis might pick her as his running mate, she has to embrace the culture wars. Her attempts to say that women, minorities, and immigrants should just shut up and let the straight white Christian men run the show might be amusing, but she won't be able to opt out. As a result, her Reaganistic views may not come to dominate her positions. But as a litmus test, she is all be have. (V)

Republicans Take on Wall Street

As mentioned above, Ronald Reagan was a big fan of free markets. Among other things, that meant letting Wall Street firms manage investments the way they wanted to, without the government telling them what they could and could not do, as long as they stayed within the law. In the past decade or so, investment funds with $18 trillion in assets have decided that companies that care about E.S.G. (Environmental, Social, and Governance) factors have the future and companies that disregard these factors will ultimately fall by the wayside. Thus whether a company cares about E.S.G. is a factor in determining whether to invest in it. This is simply a business decision about trying to determine which companies will succeed and which will fail in the future.

Republicans see this as supporting woke corporations and want to make it illegal for investment funds to consider E.S.G. when making investment decisions. So, if a tobacco company or an oil company is paying a higher dividend than a solar energy company, the Republicans don't want to allow the fund managers to say "we don't think tobacco or oil companies have a bright future, so we don't want to invest in them, despite the higher dividend." In other words, the Republicans want to overrule the free market and not let the funds use their own judgment to determine what to buy. Again, there is no law or rule requiring funds to consider E.S.G., only one that says they are free to do so if that makes business sense to them. Put simply, the Republicans want to make it illegal to consider some factors that fund managers think are relevant companies' future success.

On Tuesday, the House voted 216 to 204, largely along party lines, to repeal a Dept. of Labor rule that allows retirement funds to consider climate and other factors when making investment decisions. They say they are battling woke capitalism, thus dragging Wall Street into the culture wars. From the point of view of their base, attacking Wall Street is definitely a winner. From the point of view of wealthy Republican donors, maybe not so much.

Senate Republicans, joined by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-Coal) and Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) are for the House bill. Tester is often friendly to environmental legislation, but he is up for a tough reelection battle next year and his state is a major coal producer, so he felt he has to support the bill, even though he doesn't agree with all of it. Some Republicans are clear that they realize this bill will raise the prospects and stock prices of fossil fuel companies and companies that pollute a lot. They see that as a good thing. Other Republicans say the only task the retirement funds have is to maximize the money available for retirees. Implementing one climate policy or another is not part of the fund managers' job descriptions. Late yesterday the Senate voted and the House bill passed the Senate 50-46 with four senators abstaining. Joe Biden has said he will veto the bill. If he does, it will be his first veto.

The bill is just one prong of a multipronged attempt to kill E.S.G. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, plans to hold hearings this year at which he will grill executives from the biggest banks about climate change, social issues and more. Needless to say, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who loves the spotlight as much as Donald Trump, will jump with joy when the subpoena arrives. He will be pleased to tell McHenry that Chase considers E.S.G. very important from a strictly business perspective because he thinks that companies that eschew it don't have much of a future and thus are not worth investing in. When McHenry asks Dimon why Chase stopped lending money to oil companies in 2020, Dimon will tell him: "It's too risky." Other bank CEOs are likely to tell the same story, albeit with less enthusiasm. Nevertheless, by carefully choosing who gets subpoenas, McHenry can probably find some conservative executives who will tell him that fossil fuels have the future. Vanguard, for example, recently pulled out of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiatives, which is intended to get money managers involved in fighting climate change. If he can control who gets to speak at the hearings, he can probably make it look like Wall Street has gone pinko, but if Democrats get to put folks on the invite list, that won't happen.

Political theater aside, traditionally Wall Street supported Republicans, but if McHenry makes a big effort to tar Wall Street as woke, that support could vanish or maybe even switch sides. Going after the big banks with everything you've got and expecting them to suffer in silence may not turn out to be a good strategy. (V)

Whither Social Security?

One area in which Reagan (and old-style Republicans) differ with Donald Trump is Social Security (and Medicare). Traditionally, the Republican view has always been the Social Security program should be abolished and people should save for their own old age, possibly with some government incentives. After he was reelected in 2004, George W. Bush's first big push was to privatize Social Security. It didn't go well. When Paul Ryan was speaker of the House, he tried to kill Medicare and replace it with private insurance plus a high-risk pool (Ryancare). That didn't go well either.

The drive to get rid of Social Security comes from the big donors, who don't like paying FICA taxes. Trump's instincts tell him that his supporters don't want to let the government get its grubby fingers on Social Security (and Medicare). There will inevitably be a fissure within the Republican Party that Democrats will exploit to the hilt. They are already preparing to attack Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) for calling for all laws (including Social Security and Medicare) to automatically sunset after 5 years. Mike Pence is also a proponent of weakening Social Security. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley haven't taken sides yet, but they are going to have to, sooner or later.

No one denies that under the current law, the Social Security trust fund will be empty in 10 to 20 years, although estimates differ on when. Then payments will have to be made from the incoming FICA stream, which would cover only 80% of the payments, so something is needed. The fight is about what. Democrats are largely united in raising the cap above which there is no FICA tax from $160,200 to something much higher. Republicans are divided. Some want to privatize the program entirely, some want to raise the retirement age, and some want to cut payments. Trump wants to pretend there is no problem and do nothing until his second term in office is over.

The battle over what to do with Social Security could become the defining issue of the GOP primaries. If Trump says "don't touch it" and some or all of the others want to meddle with it, that will help Trump with seniors, a major piece of the Republican base. The problem for the Republicans is that they want a balanced budget and it will be impossible to achieve if Social Security, Medicare, the military, and new taxes are all off the table. Just yelling "cut waste and fraud" probably won't cut it, as Democrats will demand to know precisely where the cuts will be if a large fraction of the federal budget is off the table. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

It is never talked about, but there is a whole other piece of the puzzle that is actually relevant. Programs like IRAs and 401(k)s are also part of the retirement system. They cost the government money because they have tax savings for the account owner. If those tax advantages were abolished and those accounts converted to normal savings and brokerage accounts with no tax advantages over normal savings and brokerage accounts, the federal government would collect over $370 billion a year in new revenue and states would also get more tax revenue. That revenue could be put into the Social Security pot. The reason this alternative is not on the table is that these programs strongly favor upper middle class and wealthy people and they are not keen on losing what is essentially a government subsidy. (V)

Abortions in Space Are a Thing

Donald Trump created the Space Force and decided its headquarters should be located in a deep red state. He picked Alabama. For the time being, though, it is located in Colorado because it has bigger mountains to hide it in while Alabama is working on its mountains. Now is the time for the move and there is pushback from Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO). One of Bennet's arguments is "What about abortions?" Is he worried about a female space warrior who needs an abortion in space, and whether Alabama law would govern that? Well, not really. It's more about getting qualified people to work at the Space Force headquarters and would qualified people be willing to work in a state that bans nearly all abortions? And you thought the culture wars didn't permeate the military. Try again.

Joe Biden has vowed to revisit Trump's decision. Both states already have some military infrastructure. Alabama has Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. Colorado has NORAD, located at the Peterson Space Force Base, just outside Colorado Springs, where the Air Force Academy is located. The Academy could provide a steady stream of new Space Force officers (the Space Force does not have its own academy, unfortunately, and Starfleet Academy is not scheduled to be founded until 2161).

Of course, part of this is pure patronage. Why should a Democratic president give such a big plum to state that never votes for Democrats when putting the headquarters in Colorado could be an argument he could make to keep Colorado blue? Could politics be involved in locating a major government installation for space-related things? As you probably know, Lyndon Johnson put the Johnson Space Center in Texas and NASA's main launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida. An accident? We don't think so. Johnson was pretty good at politics.

What does the military want? The generals had a bake-off and two of the top six finalists were Colorado Springs and Huntsville. Probably the military would be happy with either one. The battle may come down to who's got Biden's ear. On the one hand, Colorado has three-term Sen. Bennet and first-term Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO). But before becoming a senator, Hickenlooper was a two-term governor of Colorado and before that a two-term mayor of Denver. Clearly these are Democratic heavyweights who have Biden on speed dial. What does Alabama have? Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) was first elected to public office in 2020, is very Trumpy, and spent most of his career as a college football coach. Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) is said to be a genuinely nice person, but she won her first public office last November when her boss, Richard Shelby, retired and did his level best to get her to replace him. Advantage Democrats. But it's Biden's call. (V)

Slotkin's Move Has a Downside for the Democrats

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has decided that Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) sounds better and is going for a promotion. Her only potential serious competition is Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D). It is rumored that Benson is interested in running for governor when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) hits her term limit in 2026. Generally speaking, being a United States senator is a better deal than being governor of a small and not-so-important state, like Vermont or Mississippi. On the other hand, being governor of a big and important state, like California or Texas, is a much more powerful job and a better springboard to the White House. Michigan is kind of in between, which is probably why Benson hasn't made up her mind yet.

In any event, with Slotkin running for the Senate, she won't be able to run for her MI-07 House seat, setting off a whirlwind. The district, which runs from Lansing to the edge of Detroit, is R+2 and very competitive. In 2022, it was the third most expensive House race in the whole country, with total spending of $41 million. Joe Biden won the district 50% to 49%. So Slotkin's move is going to create a real barnburner in central Michigan.

The candidate Slotkin beat in the 2022 general election, Army veteran Tom Barrett, has already jumped into the 2024 House race. Barrett may face Republican state Sen. Lana Theis, whose 2022 platform included stating that Democrats want to groom and sexualize kindergartners and teach 8-year-olds they are responsible for slavery. If she enters the mix, Democrats are sure going to root for her. Maybe even more than just root (i.e., some ratfu**ing). Barrett was a top-tier recruit last time and the state and national GOP will do what they can to help Barrett, especially since he is now well known in the district. Democrats hammered him on abortion last time and will do so next time as well, but he is a lot better than a nutter.

The Democratic field is murky. One potential candidate is Ingham County Clerk and former state Rep. Barb Byrum, who has appeared on MSNBC to debunk election fraud theories. She comes from a prominent (read: rich) Lansing family. Her mother is a former state senator and her father was once president of the Michigan Agri-Business Association. Byrum owns a small hardware store and her background as a small business owner could be a plus.

Another possible candidate is former state Sen. Curtis Hertel, son of a former Michigan House speaker. Others include Lansing mayor Andy Schor, state Sen. Sarah Anthony, and state Reps. Julie Brixie and Angela Witwer. In short, the Democrats have plenty of candidates.

Democratic insiders say that all the candidates are Lansing-based and wouldn't want to fight each other, so a long and bitter primary isn't so likely. Also Slotkin, the current occupant of the seat, is surely going to work behind the scenes to support the candidate she thinks is best positioned to beat Barrett. She knows the district well and she knows Barrett's strengths and weaknesses, so she is in a good position to figure out who would be the strongest. What she has to worry about, though, is making enemies because she really does not want some Black state senator to jump into the U.S. Senate race and force a divisive primary. (V)

Texan Bans Pork

Texas is a major beef producing state and a noted Texan has decided to eliminate pork. Specifically, House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger (R-TX) has decided to ban all pork (earmarks) in the upcoming Labor-HHS-Education, Financial Services, and Defense appropriations bills. She also wants to limit it to a total of 0.5% in all the 2024 appropriations bills combined. Granger has been on the job only 2 months and people have wondered what kind of chair she would be. Now they are finding out.

Pork management is important for a key reason: it can get votes. It is common that a senator or representative doesn't like a bill for some reason, but the party leadership needs the vote. So they go to the recalcitrant member and ask: What would it take to get your vote? When the member says: "I want a bridge to nowhere in my state/district" they've got the vote. In general, Republicans hate pork because it leads to a lot of wasteful spending, but they sometimes have to give in. It looks like Granger is going to come down on the side of "maybe a tiny bit of pork, but not too much."

Democrats are not against pork. Ranking member of the Appropriations Committee Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said she was saddened by Granger's decision. Specifically, some health centers, hospitals, and schools that got money last year due to earmarks (when the Democrats were in charge), won't get any this year. She noted that some of the organizations affected got the money last year due to earmarks requested by Republicans. Granger was not impressed. (V)

Liz Cheney Has a Job

Former representative Liz Cheney became unemployed on Jan. 3, 2023. She hunted around for a job and found one about 90 miles from her former place of employment, in Virginia. Specifically, she is now a professor at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. She will give lectures to students and to the public and will participate in the Center's research program.

Cheney made a statement when her appointment was announced yesterday: "I am delighted to be joining the UVA Center for Politics as a Professor of Practice. Preserving our constitutional republic is the most important work of our time, and our nation's young people will play a crucial role in this effort. I look forward to working with students and colleagues at the Center to advance the important work they and others at the University of Virginia are doing to improve the health of democracy here and around the world." Prof. Larry Sabato, director of the Center, called Cheney a true profile in courage.

Cheney is no stranger to Virginia. She grew up there and went to McLean High School in Fairfax County, VA, although she left the state to go to college in Colorado and law school at the University of Chicago. (V)


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