Absent more pressing events, AP’s award-winning Anthony Izaguirre focuses our attention on DeSantis’ pursuit of an “aggressive conservative agenda” through the sinewy exercise of his executive powers. DeSantis relies on “unilateral moves” encouraged by “a dominant reelection victory” that “energized the state’s Republican base.”

Look out, national Democrats. DeSantis flipped solid blue Miami-Dade County last November. And now his “meticulous style that underpins his brash public persona and offers hints about how he could govern if elected president” may be coming for you.

DeSantis gained a national following through his resistance to extensive coronavirus lockdowns, and has since bolstered his place as a Republican firebrand by positioning himself on the front lines of the nation’s culture wars. He’s expected to formally launch his White House bid after the state Legislature finishes its regular session in early May.

In the meantime DeSantis has been ramping up his out-of-state travel with visits to presidential battleground states. Statehouse Republicans, who have a supermajority, are already moving quickly to deliver on several of DeSantis’ conservative priorities, which will give him an additional boost before he announces his candidacy.

Not that there’s anything wrong with this — from a center-right perspective, anyway — nor should fans of this website fault the author’s description. While some of us would, and should, take issue with the “firebrand” label as being cheap and gratuitous, the paragraphs above present a fair, if shaded, accounting.

Why, in that case, should conservatives be annoyed?

Because subtle phraseology that flavors the account comes straight from every left-leaning talking points memo, from Media Matters to Slate to Vox to Huffpost.

Read this and you would never know the Legislature passed, officially, the Parental Rights in Education law, a statute that, does, indeed, “ban classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade or in a manner that isn’t age appropriate.” Is that bad?

Three times the author mentions the law, and three times he ignores its assigned name. Instead, all three times he uses the critics’ sobriquet (rhymes with Won’t Bale Hay), twice without acknowledging the nickname’s source.

(Meanwhile, AP continues to report with a straight face and no derisive appellations on Washington Democrats’ laughable Inflation Reduction Act.)

DeSantis also took a cudgel to “gender-affirming care for minors,” pushing state health regulators to ban such “treatments.”

Let’s dwell on those phrases a moment. Gender-affirming care. For minors. Treatment. Because affirmation is good. Care is good. And treatment is extra good. Especially for minors.

Bosh.

One might also describe such practices as the surgical and pharmacological mutilation of deeply perplexed children (for profit). But while the latter would have the benefit of aligning more closely with the truth, it lacks the psychological anesthesia needed to advance the left’s delusion-coddling, family-shattering agenda.

We wrap things up as the article does, by revisiting the saga of Andrew Warren, the elected Democrat state attorney for Tampa and Hillsborough County.

One of DeSantis’ most high-profile uses of executive power came last year when he suspended Andrew Warren, an elected Democratic prosecutor in Tampa, using a provision in the state Constitution that allows a governor to remove officials for incompetence or neglect of duty.

DeSantis suspended Warren after the prosecutor declared (and signed statements to that effect) “he wouldn’t pursue criminal charges against those seeking or providing abortion or gender transition treatments.”

Because the dispute was over the wielding of powers DeSantis claimed was invested in his office by the Constitution, serious observers might wonder why Warren — if he truly wanted clarity on the legality of DeSantis’ move — didn’t seek relief in state court.

Nope. Warren sued in federal court, where he received a favorable opinion — DeSantis violated Warren’s First Amendment rights — but a disappointing ruling: As a federal court judge, he lacked the authority to reinstate Warren. In the interest of completeness, the author might have mentioned the court where, if he prevailed, Warren would have been reinstated.

Instead, with a thousand ways to end the story, the author leaves us with Warren’s grandstanding, amplified by AP’s global reach:

“He loves to talk about the free state of Florida, but it’s absolutely not free unless you agree with everything Ron DeSantis says,” Warren said in an interview. “He’s exploiting cracks in the system to trample on both the spirit and letter of the law to punish those who disagree with him.”

All of these supposed executive excesses were well known to Florida’s lively electorate last November, just five months ago, and 62 of 67 counties, many spectacularly indigo, endorsed his reelection.

So maybe the time is right to sound the alarm along the left flank. If GOP primary voters warm to Florida’s governor the way Floridians have, a nominee Ron DeSantis could be the Democratic Party’s worst nightmare: a disciplined conservative with a winning executive record.