May 19 | 2023

- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU-PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

(gentle music) - Coming up next, Governor DeSantis is set to officially announce his run for president.

The state government gets more powerful with the latest laws signed by the governor.

State law enforcement and National Guard will soon be sent to the US southern border.

And what do Democrats and Republicans have in common, and can they ever agree to heal the political divide?

All this and more coming up next on "Florida This Week."

(dramatic music) Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week, Susan MacManus is the USF distinguished professor emerita of government and politics and an ABC Action News political analyst.

Aubrey Jewett is an assistant professor and assistant director of the University of Central Florida School of Policy, Security, and International Affairs.

Great to have both of you here.

What a panel.

Well, several news outlets are reporting that Governor Ron DeSantis plans to officially enter the 2024 presidential race next week.

At this point, DeSantis is widely considered to be the most viable GOP challenger to former President Donald Trump.

DeSantis has been traveling the country for months, touting his landslide re-election win last year and his sweeping successes with the Republican-controlled state legislature.

Aubrey, let's start with you.

There's a big controversy over Disney canceling plans to build about a $900 million campus near Orlando.

It was gonna get some tax breaks from the state.

The thinking is, although it's not official, but the thinking is maybe it's the tension between the governor and Disney that's caused Disney to back out.

Usually, I think Republican candidates are described as pro-business and really giving business whatever it wants.

This is a new kind of governor, isn't it?

- It is.

You know, when I lecture my students in American government about the different parties, and particularly when I talk about the Republicans, I say, you know, the economic issues, the pro-business, low tax, low business regulation, that's usually the glue that holds the party together.

There's some disagreement over social issues, but they almost always agree on the economic issues and treating business well.

But clearly since Governor DeSantis and the Republican legislature launched their attacks on Disney for speaking out against the quote/unquote, "Don't Say Gay Bill," it's signaled that it's a new Republican Party.

And the governor himself has said that.

He basically says, you know, "We're not gonna do corporatism anymore."

And the other day or other week, he even was talking about, "We don't think it's right that big businesses and big corporations are leading the change in the social fabric of America."

I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what he said, and he basically then said the government and his goal was to stop them.

So it really is different than we have seen in previous Republicans running for office.

- Susan, I want to ask you the same question, but I've heard this description of Governor DeSantis, he's a big government conservative.

Would you agree?

- In a different way.

Right now, there's a tie between big government, big business, big media.

People don't like... And big corporations.

Big is not good in America right now when you look at the fact that only 20-some percent think this country's headed in the right direction.

And corporate America and wokeism are merged together in DeSantis' agenda and in the minds of a lot of Republicans, so it's a link between the cultural and the economic, but all sort of at its worst from the perception of the governor reflected in big corporate America.

- So Aubrey, this campaign that the governor's waged against wokeism, you know, I wonder, once he gets outside of Florida, how does that land?

How do people around the country, do you think, feel about the campaign against wokeism?

- Well, I think some, as Susan mentioned, a lot of Republicans around the country love it.

They love DeSantis, they love what he's doing, and they may vote for him, in fact, when he runs.

I might add, quite a lot of them still like Trump as well and they might prefer that DeSantis "wait his turn," quote/unquote.

But I think among Republicans, this is still a winning issue for Governor DeSantis and that's why he's pushing it.

But, you know, getting outside of that, well, I say two things.

One, there are some Republicans who are beginning to criticize him.

We saw Governor Sununu, former Governor Chris Christie, they basically said, you know, attacking corporations for exercising free speech, that's not conservative.

That's what we always accuse the Democrats and liberals of doing.

So he's beginning to get a little pushback.

And of course then, in the general election, if it ever gets that far, I think that's potentially where he gets some pushback.

But I wouldn't underestimate this governor.

He's really good at framing issues, and so he might be able to frame it in a way that attracts even general election voters.

- Sue.

- There was a CBS poll that was done a couple weeks ago, a really large sample size, not your usual 400, which drives me crazy.

I think those polls are not really useful.

But this poll asked a big pool of potential Republican primary voters, what was the top thing that they wanted to see in a candidate?

The top issue, which was expressed by 84% of the respondents, was they are against wokeism.

And I think too quickly we are these days to jump to the general election and not really focus on the point that, from here on out, it's one state.

It's Iowa, it's the New Hampshire primary, and then a couple more states and a couple more states.

But all these polls and a lot of the discussion is already looking at the general election, and that is not how you analyze an election campaign at this point.

It's just not.

- And this idea of wokeism, I think a lot of people say, "What is the definition of wokeism?"

Is it generally agreed upon or is it just a feeling about the way corporations or some people act?

Aubrey, what's your take on that?

- Well, I think it has become, for a lot of conservative Republicans, a catchall term for liberal things that they don't like, honestly.

But if you ask, you know, different Republican leaders what their definition of woke, it would be something like, you know, liberals who want to stop conservative debate or liberals who are pushing these extreme progressive ideas onto American society, or maybe another synonym, what we might have called just a few years ago being politically correct.

So I think woke does as some different terms, but amongst a lot of Republicans, as Susan mentioned in that poll that she mentioned, it's a big issue and it's why DeSantis keeps hammering away on it.

And I don't think he's gonna back down on the Disney thing at all, you know, until he wins the nomination or loses, and maybe he'll either be out of Florida running for president or he'll be back and on to other issues.

- Okay, well, wokeism is tied to our next topic.

Governor DeSantis signed bills this week that banned gender-affirming care for minors, target drag shows, restrict discussion of personal pronouns in schools, ease restrictions on prayer at school events, and force people to use certain bathrooms.

The signing took place at Cambridge Christian Private School in Tampa, where the governor used the slogan, "Let Kids Be Kids."

- We're protecting kids and we're gonna protect kids when it's popular.

We'll protect kids even when you take some incoming as a result of maybe offending some ideologies or some agendas out there, but that's fine.

- [Rob] DeSantis has made anti GLBTQ legislation a large part of his agenda as he prepares to seek the Republican presidential nomination.

GLBTQ rights groups and Democrats criticized the governor for signing the slate of bills.

- Governor Ron DeSantis has just signed into law the largest slate of anti LGBTQ bills in Florida's history.

And we receive this as it is intended, as an all out attack on freedom.

Free states don't strip parents of the right to make healthcare decisions for their children.

Free states don't ban books, they don't censor curriculum, and they don't muzzle free speech.

- [Rob] Also this week at New College in Sarasota, DeSantis signed bills which restrict certain topics from being taught at universities, including that systematic racism and sexism exist.

The new laws also give greater power to university boards and presidents to hire and fire.

It limits protection for tenured faculty members and prohibits spending related to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

- Subjects like critical race theory, other types of DEI-infused courses and majors, Florida's getting outta that game.

If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to Berkeley, go to some of these other places.

That's fine.

- [Rob] Outside New College, students protested the governor's actions.

- If you do not think that you will be affected by this, you are wrong.

This affects everyone, from our students, teachers, professors, faculty, everyone that will be affected by this.

- It's gonna die in Florida where it began and we're not gonna spread this contagion of all of these limitations on our freedoms of education, of the freedoms to be able to pursue what kind of livelihood you want as a mother or as an individual.

- Susan, the governor says that this is the free state of Florida.

Democrats say what the governor's doing is the opposite of freedom.

What do you think?

- Freedom is the key buzzword, obviously, on both sides of the aisle.

This is very interesting because what I see from looking at Florida's demographics, and the nation's as well, is the issues that are really contentious right now have a very, very sharp generational schism to them.

Younger generations look at all of this very, very differently than do older generations.

Older generations who are a larger share of voting Republicans in a primary, are of the opinion on a lot of these issues that things are just changing too fast in America and the pace at which we're having major cultural shifts is one of the driving forces behind a lot of them saying the country's out of control and they don't like it.

Overlaying all of that to me is an even bigger theme that I think we're gonna see across next year's election in all the states, and that is the parental movement, parents looking at their control over their children versus the government.

It's one of the common themes that ties it all together.

- Aubrey, do you think freedom is gonna be the number one issue in the presidential election?

- Well, I certainly think that Governor DeSantis will keep pushing that because it's been a phrase since the Covid era when he coined the free state of Florida.

And that's where he sort of made his bank and started to raise his profile nationally and increase his bank account in his PAC.

And so yeah, I think that he'll talk about freedom quite a bit and he'll talk... And again, he's great at framing these issues, so for instance, when he talks about these K through 12 bills and the parent bill of rights and that sort of thing, as we just heard in the clip, he talks about, you know, "We're gonna be protecting children."

But then, you know, for a lot of people who are more moderate, or particularly if you're progressive or Democrat, you say, you know, "Protect them from what?

Just from having information?"

or particularly if there was an LGBT teen or a transgender young kid, maybe six or seven years old, what are they gonna feel or what are their parents gonna feel?

I mean, they don't seem to have the freedom to do what they would like to do.

- Well, the governor announced this week that he's sending more than 1,100 Florida law enforcement agents and National Guard members to Texas' border with Mexico.

DeSantis has attacked President Joe Biden over the long lines of asylum seekers and economic refugees on the southern border, signaling that immigration will be one of the main issues in his presidential campaign.

The Florida personnel will be sent to the Texas border for 30 days.

The announcement of the deployment comes just days before the start of the hurricane season.

So Aubrey, what can the governor realistically do to change the conditions on the border?

- Well, realistically, not too much.

You know, the number of people that are being sent to the border from Florida, this is more of a symbolic action.

And that's not to crack down, that's not to say something bad about it politically.

Lots of times, political actions are more symbolic.

What the governor is trying to do is make it clear that he thinks that Joe Biden is responsible for the crisis at the border, that he thinks Democrats haven't been tough enough on illegal immigration and that he, Ron DeSantis, is gonna do something about it, that he's gonna take action.

And that's why a lot of Republicans really like the governor because he takes these actions, whether it's flying folks from Texas up to Martha's Vineyard, or now, you know, sending the Florida Guard, you know, DeSantis' new private army to Texas on the border.

I mean, Republicans like it that he's taking action on something they care about, regardless of whether it really makes a big difference or not.

- And Susan, could this kind of action help DeSantis trounce Trump in a matchup of the two, if the two are the major candidates in the primaries next year?

- I don't think they're probably on different pages on the immigration issue that much, so I don't see it as one of the big distinguishers between the two of them.

- The other question I have is a lot of these people at the border are Cubans and Venezuelans who make up a big portion of the Florida population.

They're people that we've always let come into Florida.

Now the governor's taking a stand against folks, the kind of folks who live here in Florida.

- Right, and we've been kind of interested to see, particularly focusing on South Florida and even Orlando area, where there are large concentrations of Hispanics that have come from other places.

We even see a mix there because, depending on how many generations you've lived here, what your economic circumstance is, how you feel about people that are coming illegally as opposed through regular process, it's just one of those issues that we don't have, frankly, a very good read on exactly how these different Hispanics from different countries of origin and heritage feel and different generations in the US how they feel about this issue.

- About limits on immigration.

- Right.

- Aubrey, we just have about 30 seconds left, but at the start of this segment, we talked about DeSantis and maybe being the most viable candidate.

DeSantis said to some donors this week that it's really a three person race.

It's gonna be Trump, it's gonna be DeSantis, it's gonna be Biden.

Do you think that's the way it's shaping up, I mean, that the other Republicans don't count?

- I think that there's some truth to that as of right now, absolutely.

I think it's clear that DeSantis is the biggest challenge, the biggest threat to Trump.

And of course, you know, is it possible that one of those Republicans who is running in third, fourth, or fifth and low single digits could emerge?

I mean, it's possible, but I think that that is very plausible and probably true.

- Well, it's good to have you both here and I hope you come back.

What an exciting year this is gonna be, year and a half.

So thank you very much for being on the program, Susan MacManus and Aubrey Jewett.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

(tense music) - Two years ago, we introduced you to a group of Republicans and Democrats on Longboat Key who were trying to bridge the deep political divide between their parties.

Some have called it the Miracle on Longboat Key.

What kind of progress is the group making?

Well, here to talk about it is Lynn Larson.

She's a Republican member of the Miracle on the Key group and a former town commissioner.

She's also a past president of the local Kiwanis Club.

And joining us with her is Ed Sabol.

He's the immediate past president of the Longboat Key Democratic Club.

He's a retired union organizer and is originally from New Jersey.

And nice to see both of you here in person.

Thanks for coming up.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thanks for inviting us.

- So let's talk about what you agree on.

Are there many points of which you as a Republican, you as a Democrat agree on?

Like for instance, was Joe Biden, was he, do you agree that Joe Biden was the legitimately elected president in 2020?

- Well, it's funny you bring that up because that was... One of our Democratic members, very early on, pushed that very, very hard, "Answer the question, answer the question."

Finally, the Republican colleagues said, "Listen.

He's the president.

We all acknowledge that.

Can we just, like, move on and get over that?"

So yes, we all agree that he was the elected president.

- He's our president.

- What about January 6th?

How do you view January 6th?

Is there a disagreement about what happened?

- You know, we've not really talked about it.

I know what my personal feelings are.

You know, it was an embarrassment for the United States around the world, but I don't know that we all necessarily agree or have the same viewpoint.

- It's not something we've ever talked about.

- What do you talk about?

What kinds of things have you found agreeable?

- Well, we found, we've talked about things that we agree on, number one.

So what we tried to look at was, what do we have in common?

And we were surprised that we have a lot of things in common.

We all want our grandchildren, our children, to have a better world than we do.

We want safe housing.

We want affordable housing.

And, you know, I can't think of of the main things that, you know, we want hospitalization and, you know, care for everyone.

So I think we agree on the major points.

It's how we get there that we would disagree.

- That's the tough part.

I read at one point that you shared pictures of each other's families as a way to break down the distance between the two groups?

- We did, and it's what Lynn is saying, right.

We're all proud grandparents or we have families that we're proud of and we share concerns.

We want it to be a better place for them.

So that's a good thing.

- What are the sticking points?

Where do you find...

I mean, you said there's some things like January 6th you don't really talk about.

What are the other sticking points that you just, you feel like it's probably safe right now not to talk about or just to leave on the table?

- Well, I think there's a little bit of pressure on our group right now because of the upcoming presidential elections, right.

That's starting already.

And so people wanna be careful about what they say, who's supporting who, and all of that.

So I think that's a bit of a challenge to us.

And there are some issues that we really dug in deep on, and so we jointly issued a statement on gun safety that we put out to elected officials, saying, "We need to do something."

It encompasses a lot of things like, you know, putting limits on the age and waiting periods and things like that.

We could not agree on banning assault weapons.

There's a difference of opinion there.

But we did come up with a two-page joint statement that we all put our names on and publicly issued.

- Do you get pushback?

Lynn, do you get pushback from members of your party, and Ed, do you get pushback from members of your party, saying, "You shouldn't talk to those folks"?

- There is some, and at the same time, within the Republican Party and within the Democratic Party, people don't always think the same way.

So there's not groupthink in either party.

So there's different ideas.

- What are the meetings like when you have a meeting of this group?

Do you call it the Miracle on Longboat Key?

- Miracle on the Key, because we're very humble people.

(Ed and Rob laugh) - I think miracle might be a little overstretched, but, you know, but we are speaking to each other.

- But what are the meetings like?

How do they go, and how often do you meet?

- We've been meeting once a month at least, mostly in person, some via Zoom, but, you know, usually we get together.

There's eight of us.

Plus we were very fortunate to have Racelle Weiman, the mediator, come in and help us get started.

She kept us on track and kept us focused and gave us those little exercises, like look at the pictures to help us build trust with each other.

So we sit around, we talk, we agree on some things, we disagree, and as Lynn said, you know, it's true, right.

I may agree with one of the Republicans on something and disagree with one of the Democrats, you know.

We all have our own personal views.

- And the mediator that you have has worked in countries where there's been genocides, so she's worked in really sticky situations.

- Yes, she, you know, has quite the background.

And one of the things she said about us is, oftentimes, she would be in a situation where people were ordered to go into a room and sit down and talk to each other, you know, as part of, like, a United Nations effort.

We all showed up voluntarily.

We all went there because we wanted to sit down and talk with each other.

- Well, Lynn, I gotta ask you that.

When you first joined, why did you want to join this group?

What were you feel feeling or thinking at the time?

- Well, I was kind of drafted, to be honest.

(chuckles) A couple people were approached and they said, "Go call Lynn," so it was like, so I, you know, and I went to see, okay, what is this about, and I was pleased.

And I think the first meeting was when we did find that we did have some common goals.

- And you were an elected official, so you had to talk to people of all parties to get elected, right?

- Yes.

And, you know, it was a nonpartisan position on Longboat, but I spoke to every group.

I went to speak to the Democrat Club.

I went to speak to the Republican Club.

Any group that would let me in the door, I spoke, because not a lot of people knew me when I ran for office originally.

- So what's the big goal?

What are you trying to accomplish by talking to each other?

- Well, I think we've done, you know, the groups that we've put together for the speakers, when we've had the supervisor of elections, 'cause people were concerned, "Oh, the election law is changing."

There was a lot of rumors.

And I said, "We'll have the supervisor of elections," because Ron Turner in Sarasota does a wonderful job with the elections and I've actually worked a lot of elections, so I knew that it's a professional job that's done.

So when we brought that together for the community, I think we had about 80 people sign up for that.

And so people were really interested and it was a pleasant experience.

- There's some people still that think that election machines can be hacked.

Did that come up at the meeting at all?

- I don't think that came up at the meeting.

Mostly, I believe, it was more procedural and we were actually also giving some information to Democrats and Republicans.

So it was, you know, how to update, you know, how to get an absentee ballot.

And it's important for people to periodically make sure their address is correct, make sure that their signature is current, because if you go to request an absentee ballot, you need to have your current signature and, you know, on record.

- Everybody's signature changes.

- Yes.

- So have you heard from people outside Longboat Key, outside of Sarasota County, that want to emulate what you're doing?

- Ed has talked to a lot of people and so has Scott.

Unfortunately, Scott couldn't be here today, but Ed has more experience with that.

- Yeah, we've had contacts from around the country.

I think there's a... Generally, people are tired of the constant conflict, right.

It's exhausting.

And you know, people are looking for a way out.

And I think that's our goal, is to be role models, to say to people, "You can do this.

You can sit down in a room, have an intelligent conversation.

Disagree.

That's fine.

There's nothing, you know, honest people have honest differences.

But just listen and try and learn, try and understand better where the other person is coming from."

- Is there a website where people can go if they're in Sarasota County or on Longboat Key and want to join and come to one of the meetings?

- I don't think we have a website.

We were talking about setting one up, but- - I think they're working on maybe that as the next step, but so far, our meetings have been private.

- Okay.

- And so it's just the four of us and I think we're, you know, four Republicans and four Democrats, and I believe we're adding another member from each side.

Our public meetings, when we have guest speakers, have been open and we've had also our new county commissioner, Mark Smith, so we had him come out.

He's a Republican, but he represents us all.

So he came out and was there to speak to the group and see, what are you interested in, what are your concerns on Longboat Key?

- All right.

Well, Ed and Lynn, you give hope to us all.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining us.

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