An easy way for Democratic Governors who want to be president to get media attention is to go after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. But he keeps swatting them down.
California’s Gavin Newsom ran an ad in Florida over the last Fourth of July holiday warning residents “Freedom is under attack in your state.” DeSantis simply asked him why so many people in the Golden State are moving to Florida. No response.
Last week, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker set himself up as the liberal alternative to DeSantis by falsely accusing his state’s educators of banning books and muzzling dissent.
DeSantis quickly fired back: “Pritzker himself sent his family to Florida during the lockdowns, so while the people of Illinois are suffering under his petty tyranny, his family is living in freedom down in the State of Florida. Our worst critics always somehow find a way to be in Florida.”
DeSantis followed that up by visiting Chicago this week on a book tour. He went after the liberal failure on crime there: “The reason why you have crime that has spiraled out of control in so many of these different areas is because you have politicians putting woke ideology ahead of public safety.”
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who is struggling to win re-election, responded by calling DeSantis a “racist demagogue.” How is it racist to favor cutting crime in Chicago when the vast majorities of the victims of crime are minorities?