DeSantis Is Flunking His Presidential Test

George Will: “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is defining himself before his rivals can define him, but not to his advantage. He seems intelligent but unpleasant, forthright but prickly, accomplished but incapable of political grace notes. He also seems tightly scripted — perhaps for good reasons.”

“His unforced errors include describing Russia’s war of annihilation against Ukraine as a ‘territorial dispute.’ And backing a ban on abortion after six weeks, which is before women often know they are pregnant. (Is he trying to forfeit the female vote in suburbia, where the 2024 election might be decided?) And vowing, unintelligibly (see the Constitution’s Article IV, Section 2), that he will ‘not assist’ any extradition of Trump from Florida.”

‘In politics as in baseball, at which the young DeSantis excelled, ‘AAAA players’ are those who excel in AAA ball, the highest minor league, but fail above that. A presidential campaign is a rigorous apprenticeship that DeSantis, although still not an announced candidate, is, less than a mile into the marathon, flunking.”