It started with a buzz in the sky, a small plane trailing behind it a message: “Be kind, Ron!” And when Ron DeSantis arrived to sell his presidential candidacy, the shrill sound of whistles and cowbells covered his voice for a good quarter of an hour. The mark, at least, that the governor of Florida is still identified as a threat, despite his brutal drop in the polls and his difficulties in doing “retail politics” – smiles and handshakes.
Donald Trump, for his part, had let the suspense last over his visit to the “State Fair” in Iowa, a dive into rural America with agricultural competitions and a debauchery of fatty and sweet food, but which is above all a must for presidential candidates: Iowa will be the first state to vote in the Republican primaries on January 15. To come out on top in this first ballot is to “project strength,” as candidates often say about what they want for America.
Straw bale debate
Trump made the suspense last but he came, white shirt and suit, when the others were wearing their oldest jeans and their most beautiful “cowboy boots”. Largely in the lead in all the polls on the primaries on the right, he disdained the circuit of the other candidates – the conversation with Governor Kim Reynolds, whom he considers too little engaged by his side, and the invitation of the major local daily, the Des Moines Register, on traditional straw bales.
His supporters, who exchange the slightest video on their message loops, had as always answered the call, the curious too. Donald Trump does not need to unroll a program, a few sentences are enough – “taxes are at the ceiling, the United States is the laughingstock of the world”.
To crush the competition – Ron DeSantis – he had brought in a bunch of elected Floridians committed behind him rather than behind their governor. His former Vice President Mike Pence, who broke on January 6, 2021 by certifying the election, had avoided direct confrontation by coming the day before, struggling to generate enthusiasm around him.
Power at the local level
Under an implacable sun which alone acts as a test of resistance for the candidates, listening to half a dozen of them nevertheless draws the state of the ideas of the American right, in the absence of an official line that the party Republican has not renewed since Donald Trump’s victory in 2016.
China is the designated enemy, from its supply of the components of fentanyl (a powerful and deadly opioid in the United States, Editor’s note) to agricultural land. Rising interest rates and deterioration of the credit rating of the United States obliges, the debt is also making a strong comeback among the Republican concerns. Only Nikki Haley, ex-governor of South Carolina and only woman in the race on the right, recalls that the right is also responsible for part of the soaring debt – via the unfunded corporate tax cuts in 2017 .
To cut budgets, the candidates are no longer talking about health coverage (Medicare and Medicaid) in reality prized by many right-wing voters, but rather the credits of federal agencies, to restore power to the States and at the level local.
Education is particularly successful, between the debates on transgender children, the “freedom of choice” for private schools and the involvement of parents in the management of establishments – with a movement of “Moms for Liberty” which is structured during the Covid. “When you go after children, you wake up a lot of women,” warned Ron DeSantis.
On the abortion on the other hand, not a word or almost in the very controlled speech of the candidates. For a few months, the right has been managing the subject of restrictions with caution: Ohio, however conservative, has just suffered a new electoral failure around a hardening.
The opportunity to make yourself known
For some of the candidates present, coming to the State Fair is the unique (and almost ultimate) opportunity to get noticed. The mayor of Miami (Florida) Francis Suarez, two months into the presidential race and little acquaintance with Ron DeSantis, is thus seeking to cross the thresholds in donors and popularity in the polls in order to qualify for the first major televised debate at a national audience on August 23. A participation already recorded for another neo-candidate, the young entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
The road is still long until the primaries, and even after. “DeSantis is falling in the polls because people are finding out who he is: he’s backed by the establishment,” said Trump supporter Shery. But after the defeat of the ex-president in 2020, his poor results in the legislative elections and his three indictments – probably a fourth in a few days -, “Ron DeSantis is trying to show that to win, he is the one who must be elected “, explains Jacob Hall, a former journalist who four years ago created The Iowa Standard, a media of which he is the only employee and which promotes “a conservative vision”.
The primary of Iowa will not be worth word of gospel: Mike Huckabee then Ted Cruz gained it, and never confirmed. The Democrats, for their part, abandoned the state in favor of South Carolina to inaugurate their primaries, after the setbacks of their local organization in 2020. The two opponents of Joe Biden were still present in Des Moines: Marianne Williams and Robert Kennedy Jr (nephew of JFK and son of Bob Kennedy). At 71 and 69, however, they do not yet embody the Democratic succession.
2023-08-13 09:29:42
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