The great Sunshine State vs Golden State debate is slated for tomorrow (Thurs,11/30, 6pm PST) on Fox News, hosted by the serious-as-a-heart-attack Sean Hannity. The Fox News host may seem less incendiary than usual during the broadcast, but that’s because he’ll have a 30 minute post debate show to strut his stuff.
This meeting of the minds will be the network’s biggest foray yet into the “on-demand streaming video” market, a move at least partially dictated by a year over year $26 million decline in third quarter ad revenue at Fox.
Hannity says he wants to keep the debate substantive, hoping that the star power of the participants will draw a wider audience:
From Variety:
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Newsom in a debate moderated by Sean Hannity? Sounds like an opportunity for another round of cable-news professional wrestling.
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The host hopes to keep the figure-four leg locks and piledrivers to a minimum.
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“It’s not going to be PBS. I don’t want it to be PBS. PBS bores me,” Hannity says during a recent conversation in his office at Fox News Channel’s New York headquarters. Still, he adds, “if they want to have a food fight, you know what? Been there, done that. No thanks. It’s a format that I think is stale and doesn’t work. It’s predictable. For me, I’m much more interested in ‘Why do you believe that? ‘Explain this to me.’ ‘How do you not see this part of it?’ Trying to elicit answers, smart answers from people.”
The 90 minute debate will be broadcast live, sans audience, from a studio in Alpharetta, Ga.
Defending all things Florida and hoping to boost his chances in upcoming GOP primaries will be Gov. Ron DeSantis. California Democrat Gavin Newsom, who proved his debating ability in a one-on-one against Hannity not long ago, will make the case for his state as the cutting edge for the future of the nation.
Via the Desert Sun:
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Newsom, a liberal firebrand in his second term as governor of California, isn’t running for president in 2024. But he goaded DeSantis, in his second term as governor of Florida, to go mano a mano. “I’ll bring my hair gel. You bring your hairspray,” he taunted on social media.
There is no prize for winning this debate. It does offer a glimpse at what could potentially be two leading candidates in the 2028 presidential contest. And it will be a proving ground for testing the durability of political parties’ talking points
Here’s the highbrow view, Via the New York Times:
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Mr. DeSantis is facing an intensifying race as he pushes for a strong showing in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses in January. More than six months after joining the campaign as the most prominent rival to former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. DeSantis has been losing support in recent polls. New upheavals within his campaign will only add to the pressure for a strong performance from Mr. DeSantis in front of a national prime-time audience.
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He is facing Mr. Newsom, who has been a key ally of President Biden’s and a leading voice of the national Democratic Party. Mr. Newsom has gathered the kind of national support and connections with donors that would place him in a strong position for a future presidential run. For 2024, Mr. Newsom has firmly backed Mr. Biden and has offered reassurances that he will not threaten the president’s re-election campaign.
DeSantis, whose practice of instigating culture war battles and autocratic style has gained him national visibility, will be expected to drag out talking points from the far right to try and force Newsom to admit the error of his silly Democratic notions.
Unlike GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, DeSantis has a track record of thwarting the ‘deep state bureaucracy’ to carry out his programs. As yet he’s not convincing voters that his vision for Florida applies to the country.
In past performances DeSantis has thrown up a smokescreen when asked about collateral impacts, like book banning, saying his administration hasn’t banned a single book in Florida. (He’s just enabled localities to remove books from the places most people would hear about them, like schools and libraries)
Attacking California is the only path open to him, since there is no convincing argument involving facts to be made via apples to apples comparisons. And the campaign trail has been hard on DeSantis, whose wooden responses to human interactions have left observers shaking their heads.
His style of governance in Florida relies on blunt force actions in the legal and political arenas; his base, as opposed to Donald Trump’s deplorables, are the lower level politicians and corporate entities being dealt in to Florida’s economic game.
Here’s a predictive view of the issues, via The Desert Sun:
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Front and center will be homelessness and health care, top priorities for voters — and issues that have largely defined the governors’ policies and leadership styles. From abortion to COVID-19 vaccines, Newsom and DeSantis could not be further apart.
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Earlier this year, DeSantis blasted California for being too generous with public benefit programs, such as Medicaid, which the Golden State has expanded to all eligible residents regardless of immigration status. That sweeping policy takes effect in January and goes well beyond the optional expansion of Medicaid that the Affordable Care Act offered states. In Florida, one of 10 states that have refused to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, DeSantis wears the state’s 11% rate of uninsured residents as a badge of honor.
California’s governor will be cast by his opponent as the leftist nightmare awaiting the country.
The nutso part of the Republican hecklers in the California legislature don’t grasp Newsom’s understanding of political reality; progressive Democrats don’t appreciate his willingness to bargain away projects/policies to constituencies with enough clout to disrupt his process.
He’s a shapeshifter, seemingly progressive while quietly defending his patrician position in the power structure. And money can be the key to his decision making.
Enacting substantive changes affecting the police-industrial complex is a bridge he’s not crossed, and when such efforts come up through the legislature, they get vetoed if not substantially watered down.
Still, we have more consumer/environmental protections and better labor laws than most states. And no single governor of any political persuasion will have the ability to resolve systemic issues.
California may see itself as a leader in enacting the progressive agenda, but homelessness –like immigration– is an easily exploited issue with solutions outside the current boundaries of governance.
Having won a political fight (recall) birthed in the anti-vaxx constituency, Newsom has decided to strike out against the culture war instigators in other states. Billboards and social media ads aimed at Florida residents paint California as a defender of freedom and the rights of women to control their health care.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ highly publicized attempts to cleanse his state of the unrighteous has given Newsom the opportunity to take his causes into the national arena.
While Newsom’s proven himself to be a strong debater, he’ll be arguing with a politician who is self-anointed advocate for the misinformation mish mash of Fox News reporting and opinion.
DeSantis will attempt to hold Newsom personally responsible for the “California Exodus,” the interstate migration caused by too little and too expensive housing. It’s real and it’s a problem, except that Golden State refugees aren’t moving elsewhere looking for book banning school boards.
The problem is much deeper and wider than anything occurring during Newsom’s tenure; a handy soundbite against a much bigger reality. The Governor, however, is skilled at coming up with responses deflecting the brunt of such attacks, rather than trying to fact check them to death.
DeSantis will trot out the myth that California’s response to the pandemic was somehow worse than Florida’s. The truth kernel here is that Gov. Newsom actually followed the advice of public health scientists. Shutdowns in California were longer than some other states, with the rate of infection being the driving force behind Newsom’s decision making.
Making pandemic response into some kind of horse race, and cherry picking studies about mortality proves nothing, given all the differences in populations. More studies say California did it better, and the fact that there was no national response planning (having been tossed aside by the Trump administration) doesn't change the scope of the disaster.
The false premise holding pandemic health measures as a freedom-denying/business crushing plot hasn’t panned out in practice. Newsome never considered creating a state-run militia to enforce his directives, DeSantis has done it, complete with counter-insurgency training and legal authority.
DeSantis flip flopped on the issue of government intervention, eventually joining the conspiracy kooks and even putting some of them in government.
From the Los Angeles Times:
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There’s lately been a lot of hindsight history, with some questioning whether the tough measures early in the pandemic were an overreaction, Wachter said. But generally, he said, “I don’t know how you say that when you have well over a million Americans that have died.”
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Had Florida been in a vaccine-skeptical mood earlier, “there would be many, many, many more deaths in Florida,” Wachter said. “So I’m grateful that — in part because my mother lives there, and she’s older — that the early message at least was in keeping with what the science tells us to do.”
This debate, depending on how it goes, could mark the official beginning of 2024’s election season. Stay tuned.
Excerpted from Words & Deeds, my thrice weekly substack newsletter. Subscriptions are free.