Welcome to Washington: DeSantis Says His Favorite President Is Calvin Coolidge, but Isn’t Acting Like It

The departure of key staff from Governor DeSantis’ presidential Super PAC marks a calamity for the Florida chief executive who was heralded as the next generation, the electable conservative. Yet amid his missteps, Mr. DeSantis recently said that one of his inspirations was President Coolidge — a man whose example could serve Mr. DeSantis well if he takes the stoic Vermonter to heart.“One of the guys I’ll take inspiration from is Calvin Coolidge,” the Florida governor said at a recent primary debate when asked who his favorite president was, eschewing the typical GOP answers of Lincoln or Reagan. “He’s one of the few presidents that got almost everything right. He understood the proper role of the federal government under the Constitution.”America “requires a president who understands the original understanding of the Constitution, who has a good sense of the Bill of Rights, and who knows how we’ve gone off track with this massive fourth branch of government — this administrative state which is imposing its will on us and is being weaponized against us,” Mr. DeSantis continued. “Silent Cal knew the proper role of the federal government.”The 30th president, after acceding to the presidency on the death of President Harding, won election as president in his own right in 1924. He won by a landslide and, let it be said, looked nothing like how Mr. DeSantis has been looking in his campaign. Mr. Coolidge was the only president who left office with a federal budget smaller than when he began.At the Florida governor’s first campaign event, an audio-only interview hosted on X by the site’s owner, billionaire Elon Musk, and a Musk underling, the podcaster David Sacks, was a disaster. Joined by a few hundred thousand people, the three men could not figure out how to make the format work as they tried and failed to platform the Florida governor. I remember driving in central Vermont, not far from Mr. Coolidge’s homestead at Plymouth Notch, as I tried to listen to the governor’s campaign kick-off. When it failed, I thought I had lost cell service while passing through the mountains. Unfortunately for Mr. DeSantis, that was not the case. I see now that it was just the beginning of what is now a tragicomedy of a campaign. The Florida governor seemed to be the perfect candidate to emerge in a post-Trump, post-Covid era. A Navy veteran with a young family picture perfect for living in the White House. He had won the scorn of national media outlets for opening his state in mid-2020, only to then become a Fox News mainstay where viewers and donors saw a potential president. The least Coolidge-like quality of Mr. DeSantis is his culture war style, which has turned off major GOP donors like hedge fund manager Ken Griffin and technology entrepreneur Thomas Peterffry, who have both pulled their financial support in recent months. They suggest that his support for banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy was a step too far. In Mr. Coolidge’s campaign, it would have been seen as a mistake to anger titans of industry in such a way. One of Mr. DeSantis’ challenges is the rapid rise of a former governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, who, under President Trump, was ambassador to the United Nations. She has consistently proven to be a better campaigner, better fundraiser, and better debater than Mr. DeSantis — and possibly a better heir to Mr. Coolidge’s style of leadership. Wall Street fundraisers have moved to Ms. Haley from Mr. DeSantis. She won the coveted endorsement of Americans for Prosperity Action, which had supported him in the past, and the governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, has endorsed her and offered “unrelenting” support. On Sunday, CBS News released a poll showing Ms. Haley’s support in New Hampshire shot up to 29 percent, while Mr. DeSantis has tumbled to 11 percent. If Mr. DeSantis struggles from something, it’s that he is anything but silent: On the culture war du jour, on major questions about the future of abortion rights, and on foreign policy, he seems to be reactive rather than insightful. Coolidge was obsessed with the budget and taxes. He was an exemplar of civil society.A century ago, Mr. Coolidge did not mention his opponents in the presidential contest — a former Democratic congressman, John Davis, and the Progressive Party candidate, Senator LaFollette. Instead, he spoke about the role of federalism and restraint in government action. For that, he won an overwhelming victory.

Welcome to Washington: DeSantis Says His Favorite President Is Calvin Coolidge, but Isn’t Acting Like It

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