TALLAHASSEE—Pledging to keep Florida growing and defend its freedom from what he called “the woke mob,” Gov. Ron DeSantis was sworn in today to a second term as governor of the nation’s third most populous state.
In an outdoor ceremony at the state’s picturesque old state Capitol building, DeSantis took the oath of office along with Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nunez, Attorney General Ashley Moody, Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, and Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson.
Several thousand people attended, including a thousand or more who stood out on the street beyond the security barriers because there was no more room inside.
DeSantis, who is widely suspected to announce a 2024 presidential bid, gave a balanced speech, focusing on the state economy and tying the pursuit of freedom to its growth, said political scientist Susan MacManus of Tampa, who attended the event.
While lately having developed a reputation as a culture warrior, DeSantis didn’t deliver a “flamethrowing” speech, as some Democrats had anticipated, MacManus told The Epoch Times.
“The tone was overall positive, with the theme of freedom woven throughout the speech,” and DeSantis tied the state’s economic successes to that, she said. It was a speech that wouldn’t alienate those potentially interested but unfamiliar with him. It sounded more presidential than his campaign speeches this past fall did, she said.
DeSantis’ points about the culture-wars were tied to family issues and children, something many people nationally care about, she said.
One culture-war reference wasn’t spoken—it was visual. Leading the Pledge of Allegiance was an old Cuban-American man who had trouble remembering the words and getting them right.
“No one cared,” MacManus said. Because that man was 81-year-old Felix Rodriguez: Anti-Communist Cold Warrior and veteran of the Bay of Pigs. He led the CIA team that tracked, caught, and executed Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary whose romantic image adorns so many posters on so many college-dorm room walls.
That spoke volumes to the many Latinos in South Florida—not just Cubans, but Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Colombians, and others who have fled tyranny and failed socialist regimes to come to a nation they regard as the land of opportunity, MacManus said.
Florida Republicans, led by DeSantis and with Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nunez playing a pivotal role, have staged a stunning success in taking back Miami-Dade—which has voted Democratic “since forever,” MacManus said—for Republicans starting in 2020. And they did it in part by strengthening the party’s connection with South Florida’s Latinos.
Nunez’s importance is growing, as state law requires DeSantis to step down if he announces a presidential run. Nunez would then become governor. But MacManus said she expects Republicans, who control both houses of the state legislature with supermajorities, to change that law.
‘Results Matter’
In his speech, DeSantis listed the campaign promises his team have fulfilled, saying “we delivered” after each one: low taxes, reasonable regulation, and conservative spending; major education reform; ending judicial activism; promoting water quality and Everglades restoration; supporting law and order and law enforcement officers; and working rapidly to rebuild parts of the state damaged by hurricanes.
“Florida shows that results matter. We lead not by mere words but by deeds,” DeSantis said. As a result, Florida leads the nation in various areas—with tourism, growth, population in-migration, and new business formation among them.
He shared his views about governments elsewhere in the nation with a radically different governing philosophy.
“Many of these cities and states have embraced faddish ideology at the expense of enduring principles. They have harmed public safety by coddling criminals and attacking law enforcement,” DeSantis said.
“They have imposed unreasonable burdens on taxpayers to finance unfathomable levels of public spending. They have harmed education by subordinating the interests of students and parents to partisan interest groups. They have imposed medical authoritarianism in the guise of pandemic mandates and restrictions that lack a scientific basis … We reject this woke ideology.”
“It was incredible. It was truly presidential,” Adam Goodman told The Epoch Times of the speech. Goodman is a veteran of four decades of campaigns and is now a Washington-based consultant for the Tampa-based Ballard & Associates. He has been a national political commentator on Fox, CNN, and MSNBC and was the first Edward R. Murrow senior fellow at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of International Relations. Goodman wasn’t in Tallahassee on Tuesday but watched a video of DeSantis’ speech.
“In message and performance, this was a straight 10. A home run,” he said. “You get only a couple of shots at a first impression,” and that’s what this is for most of the nation that has heard about DeSantis but is only now beginning to pay attention to him.
“He ensured he enters the national conversation as an outsider to the system,” Goodman said. Many politicians try to do this, but DeSantis succeeded. “He went after bureaucrats and power wielded by an out-of-touch bureaucracy.”
“Unlike what a lot of people expected, this was not grim fire and brimstone. It was a serious, confident, clear-eyed message to America, with a Florida background.”
Goodman observed that DeSantis began with references to the state’s many regions and its varied character.
“From the Space Coast to the Suncoast, from St. Johns to St. Lucie, from the streets of Hialeah to the speedways of Daytona, from the Okeechobee all the way up to Micanopy, freedom lives here, in our great Sunshine State of Florida,” DeSantis opened.
“He was emphasizing that Florida is the ultimate melting pot of America. It’s the most representative of America of any state. He emphasized that he represents a state that is a microcosm of the nation,” Goodman said. And those considering whether he’s up to leading the nation can take note that DeSantis, in his November reelection victory, “won going away.”
“You can’t write him off as someone Republicans like but independents and Democrats aren’t sure of,” Goodman said. “After a 19-point victory, he represents a population as diverse as any in America.”
DeSantis was narrowly elected to his first term in 2018, winning by just .4 percentage points—barely 33,000 votes—over Democrat Andrew Gillum. This time, he won a resounding victory by almost 19 points, 1.5 million votes, over Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor who changed parties.
DeSantis also put together positive visuals, accompanied by his wife Casey and their three small children. “Oh, my God, what a beautiful picture of an American family,” Goodman said. He compared Florida’s First Lady to Jackie Kennedy Onassis. “She’s gorgeous, composed, and talented,” led the state’s disaster relief fund, and has a compelling story in her own battle with cancer.
DeSantis, Goodman said, looked comfortable and composed, and most importantly, looked solid “at a time when people are saying things are not solid, not comfortable, and not composed.”
“He measured up to the moment in a big way. He passed another audition for a national audience,” Goodman said. “I expect (Americans) are going to like what they saw, like what they heard, and like what they felt.”
“Students of politics should go to school on this speech.”
DeSantis’ November 2022 victory was a bright spot for Republicans, who fell short of their desired “red wave” nationally, losing the Senate, only narrowly taking the House and losing some critical governor’s races.
Floridians responded to DeSantis’ handling of high-profile issues like the early reopening the state after the COVID-19 lockdown and COVID vaccine mandates. And he’s emerged as a culture wars warrior, willing to take on the far left’s progressive woke ideology and its influence over health, education, and other social policies.
The governor has led initiatives that could make an impact nationwide. Last month, he launched a statewide grand jury investigation into the roll out of the COVID vaccines: what health problems that have been reported, whether negative test results and side effects were covered up, and whether the public was lied to about the vaccines’ efficacies. The Florida Supreme Court approved the grand jury investigation on Dec. 22.
‘Unique Part of History’
Celia Gruss, who lives in Miami Beach, told The Epoch Times she made the eight-hour drive to Tallahassee to attend the inauguration.
“I feel we are in the center of the freest part of the world right now. This is a unique part of history, and Gov. DeSantis has played such a major part in making this state so successful. The minimum I could do was drive eight hours to pay my respects. I felt passionate driving up. I was so excited to hear him speak, so enthusiastic about hearing what he had to say.”
Gruss, the child of an American mother and a French father, was born in France, spent her youth and college years in the United States after her parents’ divorce, and returned to France after college. She expressed feeling disturbed by the political trends she finds ominous in France: growing socialism beginning with Francois Mitterrand’s election as premier in 1981 and then the growing and divisive influence of Middle Eastern immigrants there.
After three coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015 took 130 lives and injured 416, including one in the Bataclan ballroom where 90 people died, Gruss decided to move to the United States. She works as a film and stage actress and does dubbing work as well. She chose the Miami area for its freer business environment compared with the entertainment capitals of Los Angeles or New York, finding the latter too socialist.
‘Energy and Excitement’
Jon Youngblood has schlepped T-shirts, hats, and buttons, emblazoned with the faces and mantras of candidates and political movements around the country for 12 years.
For hours, customers poked cash and credit cards at him in exchange for a variety of DeSantis merchandise. It’s the kind of energy and excitement he experienced when selling Trump gear, he told The Epoch Times. But the fandom for DeSantis is building bigger and faster than he’s seen with other politicians. He considers a DeSantis run for president in 2024 a sure thing.
“People don’t [usually] get that excited this early for candidates,” he mused, beginning to pack up his wares as the last groups of stragglers leaving the inauguration dissipated.
Next, he’ll follow DeSantis on what he expects will be a book tour after the Feb. 23 release of “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.” The company where he works as a manager, My CampaignWear, hopes to take advantage of love for the governor beyond his own state’s borders.
There’s no official word yet, Youngblood said. But based on how these things typically go, he expects to be headed to “all of the free states” where conservatives currently govern and to the “early voting states” where the first presidential primaries are held.
“He’s running,” Youngblood chuckles. “Oh yeah. He’s running.”
“It’ll be a real surprise if he doesn’t,” MacManus said. “He’s savvy enough not to announce too early.”
Nanette Holt contributed to this article
From The Epoch Times
