DeSantis’s Puddin’ Head Campaign

NYT OPINION: DeSantis’s Puddin’ Head Campaign
By Maureen Dowd
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: April 22, 2023 at 03:00AM

He’s sinking, even as he tests the waters.

WASHINGTON — Back in the more openly sexist days of Hollywood, writers would get notes on their scripts about women characters. The studio suits would ask questions like, “Can they go to a strip club here?” or “Can you chain her to a wall?”

The most common note from male executives was, “Make the girl more likable.”

No doubt Ron DeSantis’s advisers are getting notes from donors these days with the message, “Make the guy more likable.”

As David Axelrod told me, the Florida governor is coming across like “the high school quarterback who throws the geek against the lockers to get a laugh from the cheerleaders — and that’s not a good look.”

He said DeSantis is learning a lesson: “The kind of tricks you use to get elected to other offices don’t work in a presidential race because you get scrutinized so closely.”

Even in a world made crueler by social media and Donald Trump, DeSantis seems mean, punching out at Mickey Mouse, immigrants, gays and women; pushing through an expansion of his proposal to ban school discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity to include all grades, as well as a draconian ban on abortion after six weeks. He even admonished some high school kids during the pandemic for wearing masks. On Thursday, DeSantis signed a bill cutting the number of jurors needed to give a defendant the death sentence from 12 to 8.

Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/22/opinion/desantis-trump-2024.html