Ron DeSantis needs to rethink his strategy before launching his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
The governor of Florida has opted for two arguments. The first is that he is more electable than Donald Trump. The other is that it is more conservative.
Recent polls have poked holes in the first argument. In some polls, Trump is doing better against President Joe Biden.
Polls aren’t entirely reliable, but that’s the point. They are a poor foundation for a campaign that has an uphill battle for the hearts of Republican voters.
DeSantis’ conservative credentials are supposed to help with that. Nothing excites the activist right like the culture war, and DeSantis has fought to become the ultimate culture warrior.
He has taken on Disney and the transgender movement. He has signed a six-week abortion ban.
However, economic conservatives have not been forgotten. DeSantis cut taxes and expanded school choice.
And all this is not enough.
More than half of Republicans in the latest polls say Trump is their man.
DeSantis gets a respectable 20% to 25%. But his campaign will have to double that.
DeSantis’ arguments in ’24 are perfectly rational. Both pragmatic and ideological Republicans have every reason to bet on electability and consistent conservatism.
Except that politics at the ballot box is not about reason or rational arguments.
At the presidential level above all, the elections are a love story. And all the voters are women.
The candidate is a suitor. He is trying to win affection, ignite passion and enthusiasm. Voters want to be wooed, ideally swept off their feet.
The relationship is personal and chemical, or it won’t work. Picking a candidate is like picking a date, not hiring an employee.
This is why it is notoriously the case that taller and handsomer men do better in presidential races.
John F. Kennedy could hardly match Richard Nixon’s brains and experience in 1960. But Nixon, in the first televised debate, could not compete with JFK’s looks and charm.
Bill Clinton was a lightweight compared to President George HW Bush in 1992. Barack Obama and John McCain were both senators in 2008, but the latter had decades more experience. But neither Republican could overcome the magnetism of those Democrats.
And no Democrat could match the animal magnetism of Ronald Reagan, who may have been older than Jimmy Carter but still had Hollywood glamor and a world-class sense of humor. He was also three inches taller.
There are exceptions, of course. George HW Bush in 1988 and Joe Biden in 2020 made a paternal appeal to voters. But more often than not, the qualities that get a president elected are the same qualities that attract women to men: a sense of humor, a sense of fun, confidence, and emotional commitment. Height and good hair also help.
Even Trump fits the mold: 6-foot-3, rich, rebellious as a teenager, and funnier than critics give him credit for being. Passionate but dangerous: it’s Marlon Brando.
Primary voters are arguably more ideological than the general electorate, and DeSantis has done everything he can to win over conservatives.
If the Republican nomination were a test of ideological purity, DeSantis would win.
But it is also a test of personality. Ted Cruz failed in 2016, when he ran to the right of Trump as a conservative ideologue.
DeSantis is nicer than Cruz, but he relies too much on the formula that failed the Texas senator seven years ago.
Humor is not DeSantis’ strong suit, and his smile can come across as fake. Appearances, unfortunately, often count for more than reality in love and choices. Bill Clinton was a liar through and through, but the voters and the women he seduced fell for him over and over again.
Where ideology can win, however, is when it connects with citizens’ deepest feelings. If voters want a nice night out with a candidate, they want the commitment and respect of the country’s permanent elite, the ruling class as a whole, and the leaders of our private institutions.
America is a marriage. “National Divorce” it is an apt metaphor when the elite are unfaithful and the people feel unloved.
The way politicians and corporations talk about immigration and foreign trade even parallels the way a man thinks about his mistress. Immigration is the youngest and most exciting woman who will do everything the woman will not do.
Regardless of his personal infidelities, Trump made Republicans and their general election voters feel married to him. He was passionate about them, and shared their hatred of the elites who had abandoned them.
DeSantis must translate his ideological agenda into its emotional equivalent, not with this or that political proposal but with language that speaks to raw feeling. Trump does it intuitively, with volcanic results. People either love him or hate him. DeSantis needs to convince voters that he is truly in love with them.
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