Opinion | DeSantis loves conservatism. Why doesn’t it love him back?

So why can’t they get jazzed about DeSantis? In primary polling, the governor is double digits behind former president Donald Trump, who during DeSantis’s hot streak has mostly sat back and enjoyed ads mocking his rival as “pudding fingers.” (Please don’t watch the video, which is linked here.)

Marc suggests that Trump’s surge has a lot to do with his indictment; that bump will fade, and some optimistic numbers suggest voters are open to DeSantis. Marc lays out what his strategy should be to win them: Sell Republicans on results. Ask them, “Which is more important, avenging Trump or defeating Biden?”

Columnist Paul Waldman (who, to be fair, is a very anti-tsunami progressive) sees another speed bump. He writes that DeSantis won’t get anywhere as long as he keeps faking “hardscrabble” authenticity. The governor, raised in the Tampa area, is going all-in on his dubious Rust Belt roots, much the way President Biden centered Scranton, Pa., in his life story. But at least Biden is from Scranton.

Meanwhile, Trump never pretended he was anything he wasn’t, at least for longer than 12 hours. So no one is surprised when his allies put out a pudding-based attack ad (again, linked here — don’t click!).

You know that one place around the corner from you, the one that basically just does meatball subs, but does them so well?

This is what the Fed should be. Well, not with meatball subs. With monetary policy.

The Federal Reserve is excellent at managing the economy through interest rate adjustments — so why is it in the business of regulating banks, too?

Economist Aaron Klein’s column explains how the recent Silicon Valley Bank failure, the more recent First Republic failure and even the subprime mortgage crisis show the Fed’s regulatory failures. Give that responsibility, he argues, to one of the government’s many other sandwich shops regulators.

The Editorial Board also looked at First Republic’s failure over the weekend and tried to chart a path out of the bank crisis. To begin with, the Board agrees that the Fed fell down on regulating midsize regional banks, and it prescribes some changes (and, to be frank, some firings).

Add in clarification regarding exactly what deposits the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will or won’t insure, and the government might be able to guard against yet another bank collapse.

Chaser: Read a letter to the editor from reader Griff Doyle: “Banks don’t want to regulate themselves, and now we’re in this mess.”

From columnist David Ignatius’s report that the United States is warming to the notion that China has a role to play in securing peace for Ukraine.

The piece is full of great quotes — including from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said “we would welcome that” if China is “prepared to pursue a just and durable peace.”

The thinking is that in the short term, China can leverage a subordinate Russia better than any other state. In the medium term, China’s involvement ensures no resumption of conflict after just a few months. And in the long term, a successful mediation shows China can play ball nicely on the international field.

Columnist Josh Rogin writes that the United States was caught off guard by an eruption of intra-country fighting in Sudan and struggled to cobble together an evacuation for Americans there.

What’s new? Josh says the incident is emblematic of many years of U.S. policy failure in Africa’s third-largest country. His column is a primer on Sudan’s conflict since 2019, when he says the missteps began. He explains how neglect only worsened over the past two years.

After the evacuation, “the United States has no diplomatic presence on the ground,” Josh writes, and Sudan is a failed state. Where’s Biden’s big talk on democracy now?

Chaser: Former diplomat Jeffrey Feltman wasn’t caught unawares. He wrote last month that the violence was “sadly predictable.”

• The best king Britain never got — Princess Anne — is just cruising along toward her brother’s coronation, Autumn Brewington reports from London.
• Jennifer Rubin writes that retiring Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) will be remembered as a model public servant.
• May the Fourth be with you! Enjoy Alexandra Petri’s 2021 piece about the Stormtrooper who has “no choice but to resign from this Death Star as it begins to explode.”

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s… The Bye-Ku.

Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!