FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly hit on two of his favorite themes — extolling the “free state of Florida” and bashing President Joe Biden as dangerous and incompetent — to rally Florida Republicans on Saturday, previewing the kind of pitch he might deliver as a presidential candidate.
For those who love the way he’s reshaped Florida, DeSantis promised even more.
“We’re just getting warmed up. I’ve only begun to fight,” he said at the state Republican Party’s Sunshine Summit at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood. “We are going to keep the state of Florida free.”
Time and time again, DeSantis offered criticisms of Biden — often using the name Brandon, part of a phrase that includes an obscenity Republicans address toward the president. And he repeatedly excoriated the presidential medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“Honestly the Democrats and Brandon, they deserve to have a big red wave crashing down on them. If you look at what we’ve done in Florida, we have stood up to the media. We have stood up to people like Fauci. We have stood up to Brandon himself to keep Florida free,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis touted his policies on COVID-19, which emphasized personal freedom and eschewed government mandates, support for law enforcement, and enactment of conservative social policies on discussion of race and sexual orientation in schools.
Never mentioned in the 29-minute speech peppered with condemnation of Biden, Fauci and Florida Democrats: Charlie Crist or Nikki Fried, the two Democrats competing for their party’s nomination in the Aug. 23 primary to challenge him in November.
The speech could just as easily be delivered during the 2024 Republican presidential nominating contest as in DeSantis’ 2022 re-election campaign, with themes that would likely appeal to party primary voters nationwide.
On the coronavirus pandemic, for example, DeSantis emphasized that, “If (Democrats) had their way, this state would have descended into a Fauciian dystopia. We would have had our rights curtailed,” DeSantis said. We refused to bow down to Lord Fauci.”
DeSantis said past presidents like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan inspired people. “With Biden, “you see him stumbling up staring into the teleprompter like deer in a headlights,” he said. “I must say, though, we should all extend our best wishes to President Joe Biden for a speedy recovery from his bout with COVID, and hopefully the United States will have a speedy recovery from its bout with Joe Biden.”
Democrats
DeSantis was top of mind for Crist and Fried, who spoke Saturday at the Florida LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus summer conference in Fort Lauderdale.
“We’ve got to get rid of the guy. He’s an absolute monster,” Crist said about DeSantis. “This guy’s horrible. We all know it,” adding that, “He’s dead wrong on everything.”
Crist said DeSantis is guided by a desire to appeal to “Republican wacko voters” who will decide the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. “All he does is try to pursue the White House.”
If Democrats want to win in November, Fried said, they should nominate her. “If we want to take down Ron DeSantis, I am your only shot,” she said.
Fried pledged to deflect what she called a hate campaign run by DeSantis against the LGBTQ+ community.
“When you encounter a bully you have to take him on,” she told the audience. “And I have been doing that for 3 1/2 years.”
She’s currently the state agriculture commissioner, the only Democrat elected statewide. Crist is a Democratic congressman from St. Petersburg who previously held multiple offices as a Republican, including governor from 2007 to 2011.
“There was a clear contrast of visions in Broward County this weekend. While Republicans promote despicable culture wars and ignore the skyrocketing cost of living in Florida, the candidates we endorsed today will fight for LGBTQ+ equality and focus on the pocketbook economic issues that will improve the lives of all Floridians,” Stephen Gaskill, president of the LGBTQ+ Democratic caucus, said in a statement.
Conservative priorities
DeSantis bragged that Florida is a leader in pursuing conservative policies, and charts a course for other states. "We don’t just sit back and wait for things to happen. We go on offense.”
That takes courage, DeSantis said, but he confessed, it’s often easy to know the right course. “(It) isn’t that difficult to know what the right things to do are. You can look at what Biden’s doing this and just do the opposite and you’re going to be fine.”
DeSantis touted his efforts “in fighting back against the woke ideology that is running rampant through so many different areas of our society, particularly in our education system. ... The purpose of our school system is going to be to educate our kids, not to indoctrinate our kids.”
He cited legislation enacted this year that imposed restrictions on the way race-related issues are taught in public schools and in private workplaces in Florida. Lessons that might make some people uncomfortable are prohibited.
“We are not going to teach our kids to hate our country or they hate each other. We are going to teach real history. We’re gonna teach real civics about the foundation of this country,” he said.
DeSantis said Florida won’t be “going down the road of manipulating history to try to advance a political agenda” — which is precisely what his critics accuse him of doing. He hailed the state’s move to reject math textbooks because they contained what he said was “woke” ideology. “I want my kids to be taught to get the right answer, to know that two plus two equals four. I don’t want them taught it’s two plus two, how does that make you feel?”
And he praised the “Parental Rights in Education” law, labeled “Don’t say gay” by critics, which prohibits discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade and limits it in other grades.
“We do not need to be jamming some left-wing sexual agenda down their throats,” he said. Before DeSantis came on stage, Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez said, “We need to teach our children our ABCs, not their LGBTs.”
DeSantis repeated his condemnation of the Walt Disney Co. that began when the company publicly opposed the Parental Rights law. And he suggested that’s the reason Republicans gathered for the weekend Sunshine Summit in Hollywood instead of Disney’s Florida home. “You know, normally these things take place in Orlando, but that wasn’t probably gonna happen this year,” he said.
DeSantis said he’s ready to fight, now and in the future.
“You’ve got to be ready for battle. So put on the full armor,” he said. “You will face fire from flaming arrows but the shield of faith will protect you and ultimately keep the free state of Florida free.”
Beyond November
Former President Donald Trump delivered a lengthy speech in Tampa on Saturday before the conservative group Turning USA. The two keynote speeches by the two politicians on the same evening on opposite sides of the state emphasized the potential showdown for the 2024 presidential nomination.
Many at the Sunshine Summit said they see DeSantis as presidential.
“He has a buzz going. Everyone is watching Trump-DeSantis, what’s going to happen,” said Carol Storms of Boca Raton. “He is on point for where the country needs to go. He’s a natural-born leader. You get inspired by that energy.”
Mike Rump, chairman of the Madison County Republican Party along the Georgia border, said DeSantis resonated with the 1,500 Republicans at the party conference. “Everybody’s looking for a leader, not just on the issues, but someone who fights back. They love him. He’s a rock star right now,” he said.
Rump used to be a Republican political club president in Broward, a county precinct committeeman and a Broward College trustee.
Peter Feaman, the national Republican committeeman from Florida, tamp down presidential discussions. “People say what do you think about 2024? And I go, ‘No. We’re only talking about 2022. Our first job is to get Republicans elected in 2022.’”
Michael Barnett, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, said he doesn’t want to see a Trump-DeSantis contest.
“We love Trump and we love DeSantis. We’re hoping they don’t run against each other in 2024,” Barnett said. “I don’t believe for a second Governor DeSantis would try to backstab President Trump or vice versa.”
LGBTQ+ Democrats
Crist and Fried made their pitches to 150 to 200 people at the LGBTQ+ Democratic caucus at the Westin Hotel in Fort Lauderdale.
“We’ve got the power here to make a change,” Fried said. “When I am your next governor, one of the first things that we are going to do is create a new agency just for the LGBTQ+ community, to make sure there is always an advocacy group and people know there is going to be somebody here who is going to be fighting for them, looking through laws, looking through agencies, standing up when you see discrimination.”
Kent Noel, from Manatee County, said he would vote for Fried.
“She is a terrific candidate,” he said. “She is sincere and has a life story that illustrates her dedication to everyone in Florida but in particular in the LGBTQ+ community. She’s articulate, I believe she is a fighter.”
But others said Crist’s long resume of government experience makes him the better candidate. “I’ve also been your attorney general and fought for civil rights,” he told the audience. “And as commissioner of education I stood up and made sure the schools did not discriminate against LGBT kids — that’s back in 2001.”
Michael Albetta, of Fort Lauderdale, said he is backing Crist.
“Once he wins (the primary), I think the limousine Republicans, the progressive Republicans, they would definitely vote for Charlie Crist,” Albetta said. “The independents would definitely come over, absolutely.”
The audience cheered as Crist walked off stage, but the conference didn’t end well for him.
Members of the LGBTQ+ caucus attending Saturday voted 65.8% to endorse Fried and 34.2% to endorse Crist.
Since Fried didn’t hit a 66.6% threshold of people voting, there was officially no endorsement. The Crist campaign spun the result as a “failure” for Fried.
Fried assessed it differently in a statement Saturday night. “It means the world to me to have so much love from the LGBTQ+ Caucus.”
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