Why isn’t Gov. DeSantis breaking through? Florida is booming, and Americans are pouring over the border seeking asylum from progressive states. The Governor was brave and correct on a major test of executive leadership: The Covid-19 pandemic. He had the courage to open schools and businesses in 2020, and he was vindicated on the merits and rewarded by voters. He’s won the Hispanic voters Republicans need to prevail in national politics.

The Journal is perplexed about DeSantis’ missed-chance decision to launch his campaign on Twitter; his reluctance to bomb Donald Trump, “a target-rich environment for criticism”; his dubious endorsement of anti-vaccine crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Food and Drug Administration or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and his focus on battling woke culture.

These are all tough, but fair, criticisms. But DeSantis’ scheduled speech on the American economy gives the governor a proper chance to reverse course and, importantly, his standing in the polls.

Mr. DeSantis can flesh out his “great American comeback” into a plan for price stability, lower taxes for all rather than for the politically favored, lower prices from unleashing American energy, and healthcare reform to give Americans more choices. He can set a target of 3% growth in GDP without inflation to lift the real wages of all Americans.

He can also connect economic revival with restoring American defenses in a dangerous world. The Governor has said China is the biggest threat to America, and he’d be doing the country a favor if he made rebuilding a vulnerable military and winning economic competition with China a central theme.

This is spot-on. From the Journal editorial page to the DeSantis teleprompter, please. Meanwhile … 

DeSantis unveils his economic policy next week. The pivot will tell us if he’s presidential material or the political equivalent of Tim Tebow.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) July 28, 2023

OK, that’s just mean. To DeSantis. And to Tebow. And he can’t even use being a University of Georgia alumnus as an excuse. He’s a Mercer man, through and through.

Perhaps media multitasker Erick Erickson is simply eager to see whether DeSantis capitalizes on his counsel from a couple of weeks ago … which enjoys the benefit of being pretty good. If The Great American Comeback is, in fact, the DeSantis platform, the governor ought not simply stand on it; he should embrace it, wrap himself in it, revel in it, even bleed it.

As likely GOP primary voters await GDSCR, Erickson notes — and we agree — voters aren’t even certain what The Great American Comeback is. Compare that to Ronald Reagan’s Morning in America, a rebirth that dawned over that Shining City on a Hill. Reagan knew the importance of consistency in the crucial delivery and selling of a theme.

So did George W. Bush (“Help is on the way”), Barack Obama (“Change”), Donald Trump (“Make America Great Again”), and even Joe Biden (“Our best days still lie ahead”).

Just now, we are left to wonder whether DeSantis — the closest to a legitimate Reagan heir the GOP has seen since the Gipper left politics 35 years ago — understands as well.

Erickson implores DeSantis to get on message and stay there, to be persistent, even relentless, until he is sure every voter with ears to hear has, indeed, heard. Then do it again.

Define the Great American Comeback. Do not assume its meaning is self-evident; explain, too, why it’s vital that America get into rally mode. Tell audiences what it means from the grandeur of 30,000 feet, and what it means at the breakfast table.

So what does the Great American Comeback mean to Bill and Penny of Cedar Rapids, IA, who have had to homeschool their three kids under fifteen because the local school system failed them?

What does the Great American Comeback mean for Sundar, an immigrant from India, who owns a local printing shop in Charlotte, NC, and is struggling with spiraling costs, an invasive IRS, and a shortage of competent employees?

What does the Great American Comeback mean for the Simmons family of Scottsdale, AZ? They’re both over seventy, live far from their grandkids, and are suddenly worried about making ends meet in their retirement years due to Bidenomics.

DeSantis must explain, as well, why he is the one uniquely qualified to make the rebound happen, and to make it stick. Here is where biography (working class family, amateur baseball star, Ivy League schooling, service to the nation at a time of war, husband, dad) meets resumé (Florida’s roaring economy, popularity with blue state refugees, reining in public unions, sensible and successful pandemic response, gains in education achievement alongside expanding school choice, commitment to clean water, unprecedented response to natural disasters).

It’s weird, so early in the cycle, to feel this sense of urgency about DeSantis’ chances. We are weeks from the first Republican presidential debate and months from the Iowa caucuses and the first primaries. And yet there’s this unpleasant tingle that his campaign is on the brink.

There’s some sad truth to that, given the funding demands of a proper campaign. If you can’t win the nomination in the late summer and autumn before an election year — you can’t, Magadonians — it certainly is possible to lose it that early.

DeSantis’ promised pivot is a good thing, and necessary. Here’s hoping he gets it right. America’s great comeback may well rely on it.