The senior political correspondent for The New York Times expects Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to announce a run for the presidency — if at all — sometime around Memorial Day.
Maggie Haberman, tweeting a link to a story she and colleague Michael C. Bender wrote for The Times on Sunday, said that “DeSantis is said to be looking at a late May / early June entrance if he runs.”
That would be, as Haberman noted, a late entry into the race, but certainly not an impossibly late one.
The focus of the piece in The Times was on how DeSantis was navigating — and how he might continue to navigate — the multiple attacks former President Donald Trump has made against the governor whom many see as the most likely alternative to a Trump nomination in 2024.
When Trump posted innuendo about DeSantis on his social media site, DeSantis demurred instead of firing back. Instead, his harshest hit that week was on the press. @MichaelCBender and me on whether DeSantis is going to be able to sustain this posture https://t.co/54t0ZE5FWG
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 12, 2023
DeSantis, who has never run nationally,is leaving himself a short runway and little margin for error with a likely late announcement. And history is filled with Rs trying to figure out how to handle Trump’s smears and attacks finding themselves steamrolled https://t.co/54t0ZE5FWG
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 12, 2023
DeSantis is said to be looking at a late May/early June entrance if he runs. It’s not as late as, say, Rick Perry getting in in 2011. But it’s late, and will test whether the antibodies he gets from conservative media serves as a shield that previous hopefuls didn’t have
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 12, 2023
One exchange with a member of the media last week illustrated DeSantis’ current approach to handling Trump’s barbs.
A reporter asked DeSantis about insinuations made by the former president on social media that DeSantis had “behaved inappropriately with high school girls while he was a teacher in his early 20s.”
DeSantis refused to rise to the bait.
“I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden,” he said instead, according to The Times. “That’s how I spend my time.
“I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans,” he added, sounding a little like former President Ronald Reagan.
Reagan was known for citing throughout his political career what he referred to as the “11th commandment” — “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”
Some political observers, however, have noted that that posture may be difficult to maintain throughout a still-hypothetical Republican presidential primary pitting Trump and DeSantis against each other — a situation Trump obviously foresees.
“It’s a really tough situation for DeSantis,” Tommy Vietor, a Democratic strategist who worked for then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008, told The Times. “If he starts punching at Trump, he’s going to anger a lot of the people he needs to vote for him.”
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“[But] if you are viewed as weak and cower in response to attacks from Trump,” he added, “that will be seen as a proxy for how you will be seen as a Republican nominee and how you’ll be as president.”
Haberman also noted on Twitter today that South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott appears to be gearing up for his own presidential run.
