Even some conservatives aren't buying Ron DeSantis's 'Florida blueprint' for America

In his forthcoming book, The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis describes his preferred political style as follows: “My first term as governor was a whirlwind. I rejected using polls as a guide for governance because leadership is about shaping public opinion, not merely reacting to it.”

Mr De Santis’s book, which tilts at setting a national agenda, is due out on February 28. It shows him gearing up for a potential 2024 Republican presidential run with something called the “Florida blueprint”. It’s rivetting for me because I vote in Florida. But Mr DeSantis seems to be hoping the world beyond his state is mesmerised by the Florida blueprint.

He explains it as the reason he was re-elected in November 2022 with “the greatest Republican gubernatorial victory in Florida history, a near twenty-point landslide the likes of which had not been seen in Florida in a generation”. This is why, he says, he went from winning in 2018 by just ov…