Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Amid a contentious government shutdown in October 2013, Rep. Ron DeSantis approached a fellow Republican freshman, Rodney Davis, and offered to do him a favor<\/p>\n
Days before, back in Davis\u2019s Illinois district, a Democratic challenger had staged a protest at the shuttered National Park Service site of Abraham Lincoln\u2019s home, where a U.S. Department of Agriculture official joined her in blasting Davis for the GOP\u2019s hardball tactics.<\/p>\n
Davis, a centrist who was facing a difficult reelection, had complained to DeSantis about how a political event had been allowed on federal property amid a shutdown. A few days later, the conservative DeSantis found Davis in the gym, told him the Park Service director was coming before a House committee he sat on, and asked for more information on the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cRon lit him up,\u201d recalled Davis, who said federal officials later apologized. Now he wants DeSantis to run for president: \u201cHe didn’t have to do that for me. We did not share the same voting record at all. But that’s who Ron is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before DeSantis was a phenom governor and potential top-tier 2024 presidential candidate, he spent six years as a quiet, often awkward backbench lawmaker searching for a way up the political ladder. He was elected to the House in 2012 after embracing a drain-the-swamp populist agenda that would later become a centerpiece of Donald Trump\u2019s presidential pitch.<\/p>\n
While more than a dozen of his former House GOP colleagues described him in interviews as a young politician with untapped potential, they said that \u201cRonny D,\u201d as some called him, ultimately had to leave Washington to find his voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a legislator, you can lead on some things, but you do a lot of following,\u201d said Rep. Brad Wenstrup<\/a> (R-Ohio), who came to Congress alongside DeSantis. \u201cHe\u2019s geared more towards the executive, where you can lead on a lot of things and do less following.\u201d<\/p>\n Now many of DeSantis\u2019 former colleagues, surprised and impressed by his rise, want to help him return to Washington \u2014 this time as President Joe Biden\u2019s successor. Several said in interviews they are willing to help him win the nomination, if only he would ask.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have my cell phone,\u201d said former Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.). \u201cIf they want to use me for whatever they think I can help with, yeah, I definitely will \u2026 because he can beat Biden.\u201d<\/p>\n The offer to help comes as DeSantis enters a critical stretch ahead of his expected White House run. The 44-year-old governor \u2014 whose office declined to comment for this story \u2014 will spend the next month crisscrossing the country while also overseeing a busy legislative session in Tallahassee that is set to deliver a laundry list of conservative priorities<\/a> to his desk.<\/p>\n An attorney who graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School and served as a Navy JAG, DeSantis eschewed the gregarious, backslapping habits that most pols embrace to rise in politics.<\/p>\n One former colleague remembers taking a long car ride with him \u2014 and talking to his wife, Casey, the whole time because DeSantis said barely two words. Another said DeSantis made clear he viewed Washington skeptically and did not go out of his way to build relationships there.<\/p>\n More than anything, DeSantis \u2014 a former Little League champion and captain of Yale’s baseball team \u2014 was probably best known in the House for being a standout on Republicans\u2019 congressional baseball squad.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re these fat, old guys with bad backs trying to get the ball out of the infield, and he would just take this beautiful little swing and it would go over the fence, and we’d all go crazy,\u201d Rooney said.<\/p>\n Like many fellow conservative hardliners, DeSantis slept in his office while in Washington, and would head home to Florida as soon as he cast the week\u2019s last vote. He rarely spoke to reporters or stood up in GOP conference meetings.<\/p>\n But when he did open his mouth, people listened. Two GOP lawmakers separately described him as \u201cwicked smart.\u201d And on issues he cared about \u2014 from U.S. policy toward Cuba and Venezuela to military and veterans issues \u2014 he was firm. He used his gavel as an Oversight subcommittee chair, for instance, to push a bill pairing vets<\/a> battling post-traumatic stress disorder with service dogs \u2014 one that ultimately became law in 2021.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some members who, it doesn’t matter what the fight is, they want to be in the middle of it,\u201d said former Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.). Not DeSantis: \u201cHe was very measured in what issues he decided to champion and the things he decided to weigh in on. But when he did weigh in, he’d move the needle.\u201d<\/p>\n And he would inevitably be prepared, colleagues recalled. Rep. Ken Buck<\/a> (R-Colo.) remembered one instance where a group of members took a train ride to New York, and DeSantis spent the entire trip talking to donors and working on a speech while his colleagues gabbed away. And when lawmakers would kibitz during House votes about football or other frivolities, DeSantis would often be in the cloakroom, head bent over a stack of papers.<\/p>\n \u201cHe’s not the gregarious, outgoing, first guy in the room to make a joke, but he showed up and he worked hard,\u201d said former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).<\/p>\n Even before Trump was in the picture, a populist streak pulsed through DeSantis \u2014 one that he frequently trained on his fellow lawmakers.<\/p>\n He railed against members exempting themselves from the Affordable Care Act\u2019s mandates, and introduced legislation eliminating pensions and pay increases for lawmakers as well their ability to use taxpayer money to settle sexual harassment lawsuits. He also backed a constitutional amendment limiting lawmakers from serving more than three teams, and championed legislation banning former lawmakers and their staff from lobbying.<\/p>\n There was plenty of conservative red meat in his portfolio, too: He vocally called for the U.S. to relocate the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and gently tweaked then-President Trump for taking too long to do so. He voted for GOP budgets that slashed Medicare and Social Security, and signed on to a controversial national sales tax proposal<\/a>. And he led a push to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen amid allegations that the agency had targeted conservative tea party groups \u2014 even as GOP leaders balked at the idea.<\/p>\n But the lack of action on right-wing priorities frustrated DeSantis, and friends say he was especially put off by the insider politicking necessary to amass power in the GOP conference. He found common cause with a group of misfit House conservatives, including Reps. Jim Jordan<\/a> (R-Ohio), Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who would go on to start the House Freedom Caucus and repeatedly frustrate party leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cTo upend the current order of things first requires attaining a position with authority sufficient to do so. But the problem is that ascending to such a position \u2014 be it a committee chairmanship or party leadership \u2014 is usually possible only once the member becomes part of the swamp,\u201d DeSantis would later write in his memoir, \u201cThe Courage to Be Free,\u201d adding, \u201cI often felt like I was spinning my wheels in the House.\u201d<\/p>\n For a time, DeSantis tried to strike a balance. He joined the House GOP whip team, voted for John Boehner for speaker in 2015 despite growing discontent among conservatives and, according to three people who were among several former friends and acquaintances who knew DeSantis during his time in the House, stayed out of the Freedom Caucus mutiny to oust Boehner later that year.<\/p>\n But that didn\u2019t last. When GOP leaders moved to enforce discipline, insisting he vote with them on all procedural issues, DeSantis quit the whip operation<\/a>. And after Boehner stepped down, DeSantis \u2014 at the time, no fan of Kevin McCarthy<\/a>\u2019s \u2014 worked with Salmon to try to recruit Ben Carson, the renowned surgeon and future HUD Secretary, to run for speaker.<\/p>\n Throughout, DeSantis pushed his agenda mostly from the sidelines, avoiding the media and shunning the grandstanding that some of his colleagues preferred.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wasn’t always standing up to do a soundbite and get in the press and impress somebody,\u201d said former Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.), who co-chaired one of DeSantis\u2019 first fundraisers when he first ran for Congress.<\/p>\n That measured approach helped DeSantis maintain friendly relationships with his colleagues, even as scorn for the Freedom Caucus quickly grew among many Republicans. After Francis Rooney, a creature of the GOP establishment, couldn\u2019t get a seat on the House Natural Resources Committee, DeSantis offered to use his seat on the panel to help advance his bills on Everglades restoration and other environmental matters.<\/p>\n Years later, after DeSantis was elected governor and Salmon called him up seeking advice about his own gubernatorial bid, he invited Salmon out to Florida \u2014 then took him on a surprise golf outing with Trump, whose endorsement would be crucial in the race.<\/p>\n Davis said he feels a sense of \u201cprotectiveness\u201d toward DeSantis because of the favor he did him during the shutdown fight nearly a decade ago. More recently, he took issue with reports that GOP donors were grumbling<\/a> that DeSantis doesn\u2019t give them enough face time.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, cry me a fucking river,\u201d said Davis, noting that Casey DeSantis recently battled breast cancer. \u201cI know how difficult it is when you’re watching your wife go through that with young children around who don’t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n While some of DeSantis\u2019 former colleagues are surprised by his rise as governor \u2014 and his new willingness to seize the spotlight \u2014 others long recognized his ambition and savvy.<\/p>\n \u201cRon was very much like into the whole \u2018inside baseball\u2019 stuff \u2014 who was running for what, and who’s going to be in, and what’s the path to victory for certain people,\u201d said Tom Rooney, who watched as DeSantis plotted his climb up the ladder \u2014 first considering a 2016 Senate run before turning his eye to the governorship two years later.<\/p>\n \u201cIt always seemed to me that Ron knew exactly what he wanted and had a plan to get there and was focused on that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Nowadays, DeSantis doesn\u2019t keep in touch much with his former colleagues. Francis Rooney, who said he\u2019d consider him a \u201cgood friend\u201d and hope he runs for president, said it can be \u201ccumbersome\u201d to reach DeSantis. Ditto with Salmon.<\/p>\n But they\u2019re hoping that if he runs for president, he\u2019ll reach out.<\/p>\n \u201cOne-on-one, he cleans Trump\u2019s clock,\u201d Salmon said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been looking for a Ronald Reagan again. \u2026 Ron\u2019s that guy.\u201d<\/p>\nA \u2018wicked smart\u2019 loner<\/h5>\n
Swamp drainer<\/h5>\n
Friends in waiting<\/h5>\n