LONG BEFORE HE got into politics, Ron DeSantis already knew how it felt to be cheered by a crowd when he was on a winning streak.
As a 12-year-old in 1991, DeSantis was part of a team from Dunedin, Florida, that qualified for the Little League World Series, the global youth baseball championship event held every summer since 1947 in the hills of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. “We were like local celebrities for a while,” he recalled 10 years later for an article published by the Yale Daily News. “We were the lead story in the local newspapers and on the front page of the Tampa area newspapers.”
In 1991, the Little League World Series hadn’t yet morphed into the two-week-long competition featuring 20 teams and wall-to-wall coverage on ESPN that it is today. Even so, it was newsworthy enough to lead local news coverage back home in Florida and to give young Ronald DeSantis, as he was listed on Dunedin’s roster, his first mention in an Associated Press wire report: He pitched five innings and hit a home run as Dunedin won, 23–7, against a team from Saudi Arabia in a consolation game on the tournament’s second day. Perhaps DeSantis was thinking back to that blowout victory when, a week after the 2022 midterm elections, a reporter asked the governor to respond to a forgettable barb from former President Donald Trump, and the newly reelected governor responded: “At the end of the day, I would just tell people to go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night.”
For Republicans across most of the country, DeSantis’ victory was a consolation prize for otherwise disappointing GOP results.
But in Florida, DeSantis was a star player on the front pages once again. His coattails carried Republicans to a super majority in both state legislative chambers. For many in the GOP, his victory seemed to confirm that DeSantis was not just a rising star in the Republican Party but the next MVP.
DeSantis’ scoreboard view of politics is a natural fit for a Republican Party that has benched its former interest in any particular set of principles or policies in order to prioritize winning above all else. If winning requires embracing tried and true limited government policies, great. But if winning requires, as it more often seems to these days in conservative circles, wielding the power of the state against your enemies, that seems fine for Republicans too.
But what do they need to win? Polls suggest that many Republicans are looking for, essentially, a relief pitcher—someone who can take over for Trump, the tiring starting pitcher of the MAGA movement—while others believe the starter has another inning in him, at least. If the GOP decides to make a call to the bullpen, DeSantis figures to be first in line.
The qualities that make an effective chief executive and a useful relief pitcher are surprisingly similar. Both get called upon in the middle of ongoing action. Sometimes they have to step in with the bases loaded and the game tied. Other times, their job is to maintain a steady course and protect a comfortable lead. It’s a job that requires a cool head, a consistent delivery, and trusting the other guys on the field with you.
That’s the argument for DeSantis. More than that, it’s also the role that polls suggest many Republican voters are hoping their next presidential nominee will fill—and that has implications in the realms of both politics and policy.
But the governor doesn’t seem to be content with
