Thanks for trying to explain my opinion of DeSantis' debate performance.
I wasn't trying to do that. My comments were directed at the author of the article and those who agreed with him that this was DeSantis' "big chance". Presidential primary debates have never previously been judged as sort of a WWE Battle Royale where the "winner" has to toss everyone else over the top rope. if you're the leader of those participating in the debate, you don't have to wipe out everyone else to have a successful debate. And I think DeSantis did.
I would be interested on your opinion on how well he did.
I've given it elsewhere, but okay....
In terms of what I was looking for, I think he did at least as well as he had to do, but not as well as he could have done. He's primarily a doer, not a talker, and I knew that going in. I really liked how he was able to point to concrete accomplishments on issues where the others could only drop talking points. So that was what he's done with CRT and gender stuff in Florida schools, and firing two Soros prosecutors.
There are a few things I didn't like about his performance. I didn't like: 1) what I took as a bit of weaseling on the abortion question, 2) an at least somewhat ambiguous answer on Ukraine, 3) hesitancy in saying that Pence did the right thing, and 4) looking around before raising his hand to say he'd support Trump even if he got convicted. None of that is a dealbreaker for me because I'm pretty sure I get where he's coming from on each issue. But I always prefer direct answers to mushy ones.
In terms of how I think he did in the sense of whether it helps him in the primary, I think it did. For starters, he's the frontrunner. Nobody really laid a glove on him, and more importantly, nobody else stood out as someone who could be the one to emerge from this group. The two governors on the left side are nonfactors. Christie and Pence are unelectable because of baggage. Ramaswamy's natural constituency overlaps too much with Trump's, and he's got enough holes in his background that he'll spring more leaks the longer this goes. Tim Scott came across as a nice guy, but comes across as a lightweight on issues and not really comfortable discussing policy.
That leaves Haley, who probably helped herself marginally but again is likely unelectable because of too much opposition in the party. Which leaves DeSantis as the guy who looks to have the best chance to emerge from this group as the anti-Trump standard bearer. The debate put him one step closer to that in my opinion.
In short, it's the
others who need to take advantage of a "big chance" to take out DeSantis, and they didn't.
