The burning question: But why?
Why would DeSantis essentially lower himself to debating a person who is A) not running against him, B) not running for president at all, and C) just trying to raise his national profile?
That is, unless, Newsom is running for president, quietly, and just waiting for the time when Biden steps aside or heads to a brokered convention next year to crown a new nominee not named Kamala Harris.
Either way, back to the Newsom-DeSantis debate. Essentially Newsom has been badgering DeSantis for months now, dating back to the height of the midterms last year.
The schtick, of Governor Hair Gel, has been that his state is the real “free” state while Florida is about control and book burning. That’s rich coming from a state leading the nation in banning just about everything from gas stoves to gas cars to straws to water bottles to bags and on and on and on. If you like it and use it every day, it’s probably banned in California.
Nonetheless, DeSantis finally agreed and the details are being hammered out, according to Politico:
A showdown between the two seemed unlikely as DeSantis ramped up his presidential campaign. But Newsom still has spent months trying to entice his counterpart into joining him on a stage.
On Wednesday, DeSantis agreed, telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity: “Absolutely I’m game. Just tell me when and where.”
An aide to Newsom told POLITICO that the governor was also in. Newsom’s office had sent a formal request offer to Fox News last week with proposed debate dates of Nov. 8 or Nov. 10. That request called for Hannity to serve as the sole moderator for a 90-minute forum on Fox News that would not include an in-studio audience and would air live.
“Desantis should put up or shut up. Anything else is just games,” the aide said.
A debate would — to put it mildly — be an unpredicted event in modern presidential politics even in an age of seemingly endless cable news town halls. For DeSantis, it would provide a new venue and opponent to contrast his record in Florida after spending weeks bogged down in process stories about layoffs; tightened campaign budgets, and nervous GOP donors.
It’s hard to conceive the DeSantis team agreeing to this without reluctance.
From a humorous take, It seems like they adopted the George Costanza opposite approach and decided to do the opposite of their first instinct since first instincts within the DeSantis campaign haven’t moved the needle in the GOP primary against former President Trump.
Debating Newsom on live television is risky but the risk is mitigated with Sean Hannity and Fox News as the backdrop. Sure, Newsom’s still free to say whatever he wants and force DeSantis into answering questions based on faulty premises, but maybe this is what the DeSantis campaign needs.
Even so, it’s unlikely this will do much to improve his standing in the Republican primary unless DeSantis does extremely well and some voters see it as a pre-cursor to debating Biden or whoever the Democrat nominee is next year.
No word on an official date or time yet but according to the Politico report above, it may not happen until November.
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