Add to the list of autumnal American spectacles—folks overdoing it on Halloween decorations and Thanksgiving table spreads; vendors overdoing it on pumpkin-related products (seriously, pumpkin-spiced lattes before Labor Day?)—the possibility of a televised debate between California governor Gavin Newsom and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
Which may turn out to be one of the great political spectacles never to have occurred if the two sides can’t come to terms.
Among the snags: DeSantis wants to joust with Newsom before a live audience, which Newsom said was a no-go in his proposal to Fox News’s Sean Hannity.
You may ask: What does America miss if the two megastate governors fail to meet for their Festivus-like airing of grievances?
Sure, it likely would produce more fireworks than last week’s Republican presidential debate (a relatively tame and Trump-less affair), as one senses Newsom and DeSantis truly don’t like each other on a personal level (Newsom, earlier this summer, calling DeSantis “a small, pathetic man”).
But is this really what America needs, a forum ostensibly meant for a serious policy discussion quite possibly devolving into ad hominem brickbats?
Moreover, the idea of two political heavyweights going at it in the year before America chooses a president—one of them a California governor with national aspirations—isn’t a novel concept.
Thanks to this column by the Los Angeles Times’s Mark Barabak, a keen observer of American politics for the past 45 years, we’re reminded that Ronald Reagan (at the time California’s newly minted governor) and then New York senator Robert F. Kennedy (at the time 10 months away from becoming a presidential candidate) agreed to a televised debate in mid-May of 1967.
Here’s a link to the debate, if you want to take a gander, as well as a full transcript.
But brace yourself for a shock if you go the video route. For openers, the debate aired on CBS (no cable networks back then) at 10 pm East Coast time on a Monday night. You’ll notice that the broadcast quality is less than stellar, as the technology of satellite feeds was still in its infancy (the debate was less than five years removed from the world’s first satellite television broadcast).
What also may come as jolt in this age of short attention spans: the debate’s narrow focus—namely, America’s involvement in Vietnam. (Formally titled “The Image of America and the Youth of the World,” the debate featured Reagan and Kennedy fielding questions from a small gathering of international students gathered in London.)
If I were part of the DeSantis campaign, I’d watch the Reagan-RFK debate—and maybe consider backing out of any Newsom encounter in the near future.
Here’s why:
For one, Newsom has the luxury of having already sparred with Hannity back in June—“sparred” being an overly dramatic descriptor for an interview during which California’s governor easily brushed aside Hannity’s criticisms.
Nor, it seems, had Hannity’s staffers researched Newsom’s record to the point where the Fox News personality could push back on the governor’s penchant for playing fast and loose with facts and figures (for example, Newsom’s claim that California’s middle class pays less in taxes than other states).
The bottom line: if the moderator hasn’t done his homework, it’ll be further incumbent upon DeSantis to hold Newsom accountable. And that means even more hours devoted to studying up on California—not the best use of the Florida governor’s time, given he’s an active presidential candidate and facing a leadership challenge in the form of hurricane that stuck the Sunshine State this week.
A second DeSantis consideration: style and state of mind.
Which once again takes us back to that 1967 debate.
After Reagan and Kennedy had their relative say on Vietnam, the general impression was that the Reagan emerged as the debate’s winner. Why so? One Reagan biographer observed that Reagan came across as “tanned and relaxed” whereas Kennedy seemed “anguished” and “gulped in restrained agony” when fielding the students’ questions.
Why would Kennedy have an off night?
First, perhaps it was the challenge of the topic at hand.
By 1967, Robert Kennedy had shifted from a hawk to a dove on Vietnam. Criticizing America’s Vietnam policy meant second-guessing the same advisors from his brother’s previous administration who chose to stay on with Lyndon Johnson and deepen America’s presence in Southeast Asia.
Second, the man’s persona was shifting.
In the spring of 1967, the same Bobby Kennedy once deemed a “ruthless” political practitioner (his older brother’s protector and enforcer) was in the midst of a growing fascination with an impoverished America. Five days before the televised appearance with Reagan, RFK was in San Francisco, taking part in a Senate committee hearing on the impact of federal poverty programs in the Bay Area.
Third, from what we now know about time between John and Robert Kennedy’s tragic deaths, RFK was not in the best of emotional places come mid-May 1967.
Only a few months before the debate, his sister-in-law Jacqueline Kennedy had withdrawn a lawsuit seeking to prevent the release of William Manchester’s The Death of a President. Again, RFK found himself caught ’twixt and ’tween—whether to defend his sister-in-law’s honor or risk suffering a further decline in his popularity (for the first time since JFK’s death, public opinion turning against the late president’s brother and widow, as voters didn’t care for the legal action).
Not that Ron DeSantis is dealing with the same set of demons as was Robert Kennedy in 1967, but he likewise is caught “’twixt and ’tween” in that every media appearance poses the question of whether to be passive or aggressive. (In last week’s debate, DeSantis was criticized for the former—even though, it turns out, his Iowa popularity rose—as he spoke for all of 10 minutes in a two-hour debate.)
Squaring off with Newsom, before a national cable audience and with the anticipation high, would present yet another “too hot/too cold” dilemma for DeSantis, further complicated by the likelihood that Newsom would lay into Florida’s governor full bore.
Then again, DeSantis may not be the only governor to have second thoughts—that is, if one believes this report that the Biden White House isn’t amused by this drama. Figure it this way: if DeSantis gets the better of Newsom, it possibly animates his presidential effort and helps him narrow the gap versus Trump; if Newsom outperforms DeSantis, perhaps more Democrats start having second doubts about the current president’s vim and vitality.
Here’s one final word of caution with regard to a Newsom-DeSantis encounter. Were it the same as in 1967 and the discussion tailored to but one topic, I’d reconsider my skepticism (and I agree with my colleague Lee Ohanian: Newsom would struggle if that topic were limited to economics).
But on Fox News, would not be the case, last week’s Republican debate being a case in point (seriously, did we need to subject men and women who want to lead the free world to a UFO question?).
A Newsom-DeSantis debate this fall? No thanks.
Better to let sleeping dogs lie—and spare a weary electorate from might be a dog of a policy debate.
