DeSantis raises eyebrows by telling GOP debate his favourite president is Calvin Coolidge

‘He’s one of the few presidents that got almost everything right. He understood the proper role of the federal government under the Constitution,’ DeSantis says

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis surprised some when asked during the fourth Republican debate who he would draw inspiration from as president and his response was President Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge.

Mr DeSantis chose the 30th president as his lodestar on Wednesday night while former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie picked President Ronald Reagan, the 40th commander-in-chief, while former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley went all the way back to the first, citing President George Washington. Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy pointed to Thomas Jefferson, the third president.

Mr Coolidge got his nickname “Silent Cal” for his reserved and quiet manner in social situations, with at least two people allegedly reacting to his death with questions like “How can they tell?” and “How do they know?”

“One of the guys I’ll take inspiration from is Calvin Coolidge, and people don't talk about him a lot,” Mr DeSantis said on Wednesday. “He's one of the few presidents that got almost everything right. He understood the proper role of the federal government under the Constitution – we need to restore the US Constitution as the centerpiece of our national life and that requires a president who understands the original understanding of the Constitution, who has a good sense of the Bill of Rights and who knows how we've gone off track with this massive fourth branch of government, this administrative state which is imposing his will on us and it's being weaponized against us.”

“Silent Cal knew the proper role of the federal government. The country was in great shape when he was president of the United States, and we can learn a lot a lot from Calvin Coolidge,” he added.

Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933), the 30th President of the United States of America (1923 - 1929) (Getty Images)

The American poet and writer Dorothy Parker once told the president during a dinner that she had made a bet with a friend that she could get him to say more than five words.

“You lose,” Mr Coolidge said, according to the story.

There are several tales of Mr Coolidge sitting through social events without making a sound.

“If you don’t say anything, you won’t be called on to repeat it,” he once said.

“I have never been hurt by what I have not said,” is another Coolidge quote.

“You can’t know too much, but you can say too much,” he had also said, as well as: “No man ever listened himself out of a job.”

Former GOP strategist and Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson wrote on X: “For all the conservative squeeing over DeSantis shouting out Coolidge, the irony is RICH. DeSantis runs one of the most activist, interventionist governments in the country, frequently intervenes in the free market, picks economic winners and losers based on his donors, violates the constitutional rights of his citizens on the regular, attacks, private enterprises in the free market for daring to express political opinions variance from his own, and fully believes in deploying the power of the state to achieve his social conservative political ends. Silent Cal, he ain’t.”

The inauguration of Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933) as the 30th President of the United States of America. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and former President, William Howard Taft (left) administers the oath (Getty Images)

Democratic Florida State Senator Lorio Berman wrote: “Coolidge is considered to have been a terrible president whose hands-off policies plunged the nation into the Great Depression, and whose tax cuts contributed to uneven wealth distribution. He offered no sweeping vision for the country. Foreshadowing?”