Frank Bruni/The New York Times:
The Florida governor isn’t punching back at Donald Trump. That’s discipline, not weakness.
It brings me no joy to make those observations. It gives me the willies. I’m rooting hard against DeSantis, a flamboyantly divisive and transcendently smug operator with the chilling grandiosity to cast his political ascent as God’s will and a rapacity for power that’s one of the best arguments against giving it to him.
But the latest wave of commentary underestimates him — and that’s dangerous. He’s not Walker: Nate Cohn explained why in The Times early this week, concluding that DeSantis “has a lot more in common with Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan” when they were gearing up for their first presidential bids than with Walker, Kamala Harris or Rick Perry, whose sizzle fizzled fast.
When you’re constantly in the news but no one is quite sure of what to make of you (and/but you stay in the news), you are still undefined. That’s both a risk and an opportunity for DeSantis.
Congratulations are in order for liberal Janet Protasiewicz in the Wisconsin [ostensibly] non-partisan Supreme Court primary; she led the field and advances to face conservative Daniel Kelly in April. Kelly lost his seat the last time he ran, so we have the winner vs. the loser.
Axios:
South Carolina shadowboxing
Why it matters: If [Gov. Nikki] Haley and [Sen.Tim] Scott both run for president, they could stunt each other's momentum at a time when the traditional wing of the party can't afford to divide its votes.
- Both Haley, in launching her presidential campaign, and Scott, in launching a national speaking tour, hit on remarkably similar themes in their speeches.
- Both conveyed an optimistic message about America as a land of opportunity that rejected the notion of systemic racism.
- Both relied on their inspirational personal stories, rising from hardship to achieving successes through grit and hard work.
Jason Willick/The Washington Post:
How Biden’s Ukraine strategy benefits from Republican opposition
The usual assumption is that presidents benefit from having Congress united behind their stated foreign-policy strategy. Partisan discord can call a strategy’s durability into question. But sometimes discord provides a president with an opportunity that can be exploited for political and strategic benefit.
In the second year of the war in Ukraine, President Biden will be positioned to do just that, with populist Republicans who oppose continued support for Ukraine as his foil. The administration might even be furtively grateful for divided government if it helps bring the war to an end on terms favorable to the United States.
Start with the fact that the president is not, on the evidence of the war’s first year, an enthusiast for what strategist Edward Luttwak has called “the victory lobby.” Many in Western capitals and the media believe that the only acceptable outcome to the war is a total defeat of Russia, including its expulsion from all of occupied Ukraine and possibly the collapse of the government in Moscow.
Harvard Gazette:
One year later: How does Ukraine war end?
Scholars, analysts say invasion has hurt Russia strategically, militarily, and 2023 could prove decisive, dangerous
A group of historians, military and intelligence experts, and cultural and political analysts, looked back at how the war has played out thus far and considered where events may be headed during a colloquium Wednesday hosted by the Belfer Center’s Intelligence Project and Russia Matters at Harvard Kennedy School.
Fiona Hill, A.M. ’91, Ph.D. ’98, who served as senior director for European and Russian Affairs at the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019, said the U.S. and the West are “still stuck” in a historical narrative about Ukraine created by Putin. The Russian leader has framed the conflict as an existential threat to his nation and has taken to calling it “The Third Great Patriotic War,” a reference to the Napoleonic invasions of Russia in the 1800s and the Nazi German invasions in the 1940s.
“He wants a recognition by the rest of Europe that Russia has its own sphere of influence, and actually has a right to claim additional sets of territory,” said Hill, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. It’s a view many in Russia share, not just the president, she added
Speaking of Russia: a reminder that there’s under-the-radar Russian money financing GOP electeds in Washington. And not just Donald Trump (Paul Manafort was convicted and pardoned, nothing hoaxy about that).
Phillips P. O’Brien/Substack:
Russia's 'Massive' Offensive is a Sign of Declining Efficiency: Losing More to Take Less.
and: What Are They Thinking in Washington?
Well, this week shows how quickly the mood music can change in the reporting of this war (which reveals just how problematic the reporting can be. After the week before, when there was all the rather doom-laden talk of an impending Russian offensive of thousands of tanks and massed ranks of aircraft, things changed quite markedly. Instead, the reporting seem to pivot away from the massing of Russian strength to focus on continuing Russian problems in sustaining modern operations.
Harold Meyerson/The American Prospect:
Feinstein in Retrospect
Today on TAP: Her centrist politics made her an outlier among California Democrat
From a California perspective, Feinstein’s early years in the Senate were particularly problematic. While she didn’t support Proposition 187 (the ballot measure that would have banned undocumented immigrants from receiving public services, including the right to attend K-12 schools), she did nod toward nativist sentiment that year in her Senate re-election campaign. (In 1992, she’d been elected to fill out the last two years of a Senate seat that had come open.) Her Republican challenger, Michael Huffington (the fabulously wealthy then-husband of Arianna Huffington) was one of the last soon-to-be-extinct liberal GOPniks, holding positions at which one of Difi’s campaign ads took aim. “While Congressman Huffington voted against new border guards,” her ad proclaimed, “Dianne Feinstein led the fight to stop illegal immigration.”
As the California electorate soon became much more Latino, Asian and immigrant, Feinstein changed with it. But despite her substantial achievements, there’s no question that when compared to the leading California Democrats of the past six decades—both Governors Brown, and current Gov. Newsom; Senators Cranston, Boxer, Harris and Padilla; House Democrats Burton, Waxman, Pelosi, and a number of current members; and L.A.’s 20-year Mayor Tom Bradley—Feinstein stands as the most centrist of the lot. Of her long tenure representing California in the Senate, history will note that the state moved further and faster left than she did.
Jill Lawrence/USA Today:
Medicaid expansion is a compassion test many 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls fail
There is no excuse for leaving people vulnerable to illness, death and financial ruin. We should all care, even if it costs money.
[Nikki] Haley and former President Donald Trump are so far the only two official candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but they are far from the only GOP prospects who fail a threshold test for empathy and moral leadership: maximizing health insurance coverage for low-income people.
Trump did all he could to shrink access to insurance under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, from cutting funds for publicity and navigation to shortening enrollment periods to allowing premiums, work, compliance reporting and other administrative obstacles known to reduce Medicaid enrollment among eligible people. Many of the GOP governors and former governors considering a 2024 race rejected the ACA’s option to expand Medicaid or won Trump-era waivers to impose complex new requirements.
Nolan Finley/Detroit News:
With Karamo as chair, it's R.I.P., Michigan GOP
Michigan Republicans staged a spectacular demolition derby Saturday, scattering the wreckage of their party across the floor of the Lansing Center.
When it was over, half or more of them walked out of the hall angry and believing they’d been robbed, the chronic condition of Republicans today. And yet, despite the destruction they had wrought, most were also convinced beyond all reason they were marching off on a righteous crusade to take back Michigan and America.
Bless their hearts. They have no idea what they’ve done.
In electing Kristina Karamo as party chair, they’ve solidified Democratic control of this state for years to come.
Finley is a self-described conservative. Accurate.
Natalie Jackson/National Journal (free article) pours cold water on prematurely celebrating 2023 in 2024:
Myths about Biden’s electoral strength could spell trouble in 2024
Democrats need to remember that 2020 was a nail-biter, 2022 isn’t necessarily replicable, and concerns over Biden's age will only grow.
It is unclear whether abortion will remain as a top vote driver for 2024—in 2022 exit polls, it was the second-most important issue to voters after the economy. And, while Democrats defeated some prominent Republican election deniers, plenty of election deniers won their races. I’m not betting on the perfect-storm combination of bad candidates and a shock Supreme Court decision holding for a second consecutive election.
Biden looks very likely to run, and he could certainly win a second term. But selective memory and interpretation of his electoral strength is not what will get him across that line, nor does it help when the media takes on a cheerleader role rather than looking at the facts. Attention to real vulnerabilities and national conditions as they unfold for 2024—yes, including Biden’s age and Haley’s accurate point that our government is still overwhelmingly run by Boomers—is what will motivate the base to turn out and persuade swing voters.
Still, yesterday’s results suggest a decent enough baseline. And Nikki Haley suggesting seniors over 75 should take mental competency tests to run is playing poorly with her own voters.
