 | By John Guida Senior Staff Editor, Opinion |
Ron DeSantis formally entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination on Wednesday, announcing, in a glitch-filled broadcast on Twitter, "I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback." |
Yet his candidacy has been assumed for so long — and has been so debated, picked over, criticized, and often, of late, dismissed — that Rich Lowry, the editor in chief of National Review, needed to point out in a Times Opinion guest essay that his campaign, officially hardly a day old, is "not dead yet." |
Months away from the first Republican primary debate, not to mention the start of actual voting, DeSantis is still seen as both a formidable challenger to Donald Trump and a potential paper tiger. |
We aimed to address that very uncertainty in a Times Opinion candidate scorecard, which includes assessments by columnists, contributors and other writers. While they mostly agreed that DeSantis, at this early point in the race, is Trump's chief opponent — views were mixed. |
"Anti-wokeness is the glue that holds the modern right together, uniting people who disagree about economic organization or foreign policy," said Michelle Goldberg. DeSantis "is betting that anti-wokeness alone can power a presidential campaign." |
For others, DeSantis could represent a generational change for Republicans. "The thing that many of his critics loathe most about DeSantis, his willingness to use political power directly in cultural conflicts," Ross Douthat wrote, "represents the necessary future of conservatism in America." |
A majority of contributors put DeSantis's candidate strength, on a scale from 1 to 10, at a 7. The scores for his rival Tim Scott, who announced his candidacy on Monday, ranged from 3 to 7, with a majority in the middle of that spread. Some praised Scott's "sunny optimism" — a contrast to both DeSantis and Trump — but doubted his ability to break through to capture the nomination. (There are, or will be, similar scorecards for other candidates including Trump.) |
For now, much of the focus turns to DeSantis. For Lowry, DeSantis "has the correct theory of how to try to topple Trump." What's more, his campaign will be "lavishly funded; his favorable ratings remain quite high among Republicans; he can draw a crowd; he'll finally actually be in the race." |
But Frank Bruni, in another guest essay, argues that "Team DeSantis's theory of the case and the case itself diverge." He writes: "I just don't get it. Oh, I get that he wants to be the boss of all bosses — that fits. But the marketing of DeSantis and the fact of DeSantis don't square." |
Bruni says that DeSantis "has a legitimate shot at the Republican presidential nomination" and that he "absolutely could win the presidency," but he adds that DeSantis "cancels himself out. His is a deeply, deeply puzzling campaign." |
Perhaps, in the days and weeks ahead, the Twitter fiasco will be a blip on DeSantis's march to the White House. Perhaps it will be a mortifying metaphor for an ill-fated candidacy. Whatever else it is and may become, the DeSantis campaign is now officially live. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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