Yesterday, most of the candidates running for the Republican presidential nomination showed up in Des Moines to answer questions at the Family Leadership Conference. The evangelical group provided the first somewhat-contentious questioning for most of the participants, in a state where retail politics and clear answers matter.

Most of the candidates fared well enough to maintain their credibility, with the notable exceptions of Asa Hutchinson — who needs Iowa more than most of these candidates do — and arguably Mike Pence, who got flustered by an attack from Tucker Carlson over Ukraine. Pence’s supporters are claiming that his answer got misunderstood, and “that’s not my concern” meant something other than what it sounded like:

Tucker: "Every city in America has become worse over the past few years… Your concern is that Ukraine don't have enough tanks… Where's the concern for America in that?"

Pence: "That's not my concern." pic.twitter.com/u2RlmmrhtM

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 14, 2023

Pence is no rookie, though, and he had to know that Carlson would pound the table on Ukraine. After all, Carlson spends a significant amount of time on his own show doing just that. The other candidates seemed more prepared to deal with Carlson on the topic, although strangely, Carlson gave Nikki Haley a pass on the topic — despite her foreign-policy experience at the UN.

That was more of a sideshow, though. The war in Ukraine is certainly a valid topic, but it’s not where the GOP base’s own concern rests. (Polls consistently show Carlson’s position in the minority, even among Republicans.) Republican primary voters are far more united on the issues around the weaponization of government and the “deep state,” or perhaps more accurately put, the uncontrolled bureaucratic governing clique. “Drain the swamp” was a potent rallying cry in 2016, and for the last seven years, voters have seen all sorts of new evidence for its necessity: Operation Crossfire Hurricane, pandemic authoritarianism, secret government censorship and suppression of opposition and dissent, and so forth.

The swamp didn’t get drained in 2017, and there’s a reason why. Carlson asks Ron DeSantis what he plans to do with the FBI and Christopher Wray, and DeSantis offers what has become the mainstream GOP position — fire leadership “on Day One,” move the HQ, and so on. But to fight the bureaucratic state, you have to prepare for a lot more on Day One. Not only do you need to have your own team ready at that time, but you also need people who will stand up to popular criticism.

DeSantis pledges an administration staffed by appointees with the moral strength of Clarence Thomas:

.@RonDeSantis: "With me, on day one, you get a new director of the FBI. We need that." pic.twitter.com/49YD4azIjs

— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) July 14, 2023

This answer goes well beyond “a new director of the FBI,” and it is a direct (if sotto voce) contrast with Trump’s track record. For the first two years of Trump’s presidency, his administration left hundreds of appointments unfilled, leaving a vacuum for careerists to fill without any supervision. His team at the time argued that the strategy was deliberate, and intended to shrink the “deep state,” but all it did was allow it to operate unchecked. And where Trump did fill positions, he largely filled them with choices who turned out to be poorly considered. Don’t take my word for that, either; Trump spends most of the time complaining about and insulting the people he himself hired.

To defeat a bureaucratic monolith politically oriented against you, a president has to prepare not just a Day One agenda but a competent and energized Day One team as well. A hostile Senate may slow the confirmation process down, but that becomes easier the longer it takes for appointments to be made, too. A new president has a strong mandate to at least get his own team in place in the initial days of a presidency. If those appointments come months later or even into the following year, that voter mandate will have dissipated, and the Senate will have more room to slow-walk nominees.

It’s the difference between sloganeering and governing. It takes organizational skill, a good network of candidates for the positions, and a leader with a clear and detailed vision of swamp-draining to succeed. The bureaucratic state will not retreat just in the face of bluster and threats. Only specific, consistent authority and accountability will work. As we discovered in 2017-2021.

This should be the baseline expectation for any GOP nominee. Is DeSantis the right candidate to deliver it? So far, he seems to be the only candidate talking about it, and he has proven able to deliver it in Florida, at least. He’s organizing the biggest ground operation by far in this election cycle in either party (occasional stoner doofuses aside), so that’s a point in his favor too. This is also the difference between sloganeering and actual governing experience, which DeSantis has — but so do Pence, Hutchinson, Chris Christie, and Haley too. When they start talking about this as though it’s a priority for them, we can see which candidate has the most potential to deliver.

And they’d better start talking about it. This is the highest priority for a Republican nominee — to restore the proper institutional balance and limits to federal governance. Ukraine and Julian Assange can wait.

Addendum: Trump’s decision to skip this forum looks like a bad bet now. He must have hoped that Carlson would demolish the candidates while he could stand above the fray, but everyone other than Hutchinson and Pence did pretty well. Will that change his mind about participating in the first debate? We’ll see.

Steve Deace had a lot to say about that yesterday, too.

Watch @SteveDeaceShow call out conservative media & Trump: "A lot of our peers have…acted as if Ron DeSantis no longer exists…There are no sacred cows. We don't have time…[There] are…disastrously decisions that are every bit as impactful as his…successful" ones (2/) pic.twitter.com/UT7hI0P0fj

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 14, 2023

.@SteveDeaceShow on Trump skipping #FLS23: "I saw some of our peers on Twitter saying, 'well, he's so far ahead in the polls, so why even risk it?' from the same people who said, 'well, Hillary Clinton never went to WI'…how are those not contradictory, but YOLO!" pic.twitter.com/jZ39Oz7UJK

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 14, 2023