Gov. Ron DeSantis had the center position in the GOP presidential debate Wednesday night. But throughout the two hour event from Simi Valley, California, he seemed peripheral as often as not, marginalized by opponents who won the crosstalk battle, especially early in the event.
While he found his voice and his footing by the end of the two hours, the early part of the event saw him look much more like a middle of the pack candidate than a man in a "two-man race" with the former President.
The Governor didn't get a single question until more than 15 minutes had passed, with competitors like Doug Burgum, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, and Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott getting in first in a discussion of economics, before he got off what felt like a scripted remark.
"Where's Joe Biden? He's completely missing in action," DeSantis said. "You know who else is missing in action? Donald Trump. He should be on this stage tonight."
The Governor called on Trump, who was speaking in Michigan, to answer for the increase in the national debt during his term in office. He got mild applause. Minutes after the remarks, DeSantis' press team sent an email out making similar points.
DeSantis got to speak again ten minutes later, addressing China developing diplomatic ties with Latin America. As with his first remarks, the message was familiar to those paying attention to his speeches over the years.
DeSantis warned that America is in "decline" and that "China is going to surpass America" this decade and, appropriately given the location being the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, he vowed to "have real hard power in the Indo Pacific like Reagan to deter their ambitions."
Scott offered a mild rejoinder, saying America wasn't in "decline" but "retreat" under President Biden.
Scott and Ramaswamy jousted, leading DeSantis to protest by the 30 minute mark, urging people to "focus on the issues that matter" and focus "on holding Joe Biden accountable." DeSantis' interruption didn't stop the crosstalk -- or his marginalization.
Pence challenged DeSantis on spending a few minutes later, charging him with increasing it by 30% in Florida during his term despite "talking a really good game about cutting spending." The Governor again protested, trying to get a response in, but moderator Stuart Varney cut to a hard break.
The Governor got to talk about crime, a favorite topic of his, and he used the opportunity to insult the state of California -- again, a familiar trope to people who pay attention to his remarks.
"We can't be successful as a country if people aren't even safe to live in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco," DeSantis said. "Just being in Southern California over the last couple of days, my wife and I have met three people, people who have been mugged on the street and that would have never happened 10 or 20 years ago."
Nearing halftime, the Governor got more assertive. At the 47 minute mark, DeSantis jumped in and piggybacked a Ramaswamy monologue, vowing to stop the "carnage" of fentanyl and to treat "drug cartels like the foreign terrorist organizations they are."
Pence soon enough pivoted to "mass shootings," vowing a "federal expedited death penalty" to apply to people like the "Parkland shooter," whose case inspired the Legislature to pass a law allowing for super-majority death penalty verdicts this year. DeSantis didn't get a response in, leaving it to surrogates and supporters to litigate the case on Twitter.
Soon enough, the Governor got to explain the state's educational standards that contend slavery benefited the enslaved by teaching them marketable skills. As he has before, the Governor blamed the "hoax" on Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sen. Scott said in response that "there's not a redeeming quality to slavery" and suggested, as he did weeks ago when the issue was in the headlines, that the problematic sentence simply could have been cut out of the standards.
Asked about Vladimir Putin and aid to Ukraine, a question that DeSantis has struggled with for months, the Governor said "it's in our interest to end this war" and that "the Europeans" should handle more of the war effort.
Republicans in D.C. "don't care" about Americans, DeSantis said.
Soon enough, Haley and Scott offered rejoinders, with the Senator noting 90% of U.S. aid to the country is in loan form and "degrading the Russian military" is a vital American interest. Ramaswamy chimed in and, yet again, DeSantis was quiet and outside the camera's eye.
Toward the end of the debate, Haley challenged DeSantis as being "against energy independence, against fracking, against drilling," saying that he'd banned them in Florida.
The Governor knocked down her attacks. He responded by citing his plan for "energy dominance," and noted that voters in the state passed a constitutional amendment banning drilling offshore, referring to 2018's Amendment 9.
"We'll choose Midland over Moscow. We'll choose the Marcellus over the Mullahs. We'll choose the Bakken over Beijing," DeSantis promised, using canned language workshopped before in front of other crowds.
As time ran out, DeSantis got more assertive, saying he was the only one on the stage who had won "big victories."
"People respond to leadership. I've done it. The others have talked about it," he said.
The open question, however, is whether people were still watching at that point.
Right near the two hour mark, meanwhile, there was another moment where the Governor had the spotlight. DeSantis bristled when moderator Dana Perino asked the candidates who should be "voted off the island," saying it was a "disrespectful" question. Most of his opponents seemed relieved to be off the hook.
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