Most conservatives expect left-leaning media and journalists to attack their political candidates in a belittling fashion, and it’s become obvious that 2024 will be no different.
Rather than debate GOP contender Ron DeSantis on the merits of his ideas and policies, for instance, they have now gone after his wife, Casey DeSantis, with one blogger describing her as “Walmart Melania” over a jacket she wore on the campaign trail last week.
She wore a leather jacket with an alligator and an outline of the state of Florida featuring the words “Where woke goes to die” on the back during an Iowa campaign stop.
“The First Lady of Florida showed up on the campaign trail in Iowa this weekend wearing a ghastly black leather jacket—American flag on front, an alligator and the silhouette of her state on the back, with the sneering words, ‘Where Woke Goes to Die’—that brought to mind nothing so much as the racks of a Red State big-bin store where it would be retailing for $24.99,” The Daily Beast’s Katie Baker, an executive editor, wrote in a Sunday op-ed.
Iowa and Florida: Where woke goes to die…
….thanks to the leadership of @KimReynoldsIA and @RonDeSantis. pic.twitter.com/G1F4Y4NZrJ
— Casey DeSantis (@CaseyDeSantis) June 4, 2023
Baker compared Casey’s jacket to the one worn by then-first lady Melania Trump on a trip to a migrant center in Texas that said, “I really don’t care.”
“Casey DeSantis’ coat is just like her husband Ron DeSantis’ campaign: Crude. Grasping. Saying the ugly part out loud,” the op-ed continued. “DeSantis wants to peel off Trump’s base by being even more explicit about who he intends to target. You can see it right there on his wife’s jacket: DeSantis’ Florida is where the woke go to die—and a lot of other people die as well.”
Ahead of husband Ron’s official campaign launch last month, Politico published a story claiming that Casey was the Florida governor’s greatest asset.
“For some time now she’s been seen mostly and by many as an absolute superstar of a political spouse… For nearly as long, too, though, others who have worked with her or around her have nodded more quietly to the downsides of the starring part that she plays,” senior staff writer Michael Kruse wrote. “The DeSantis inner circle is too small and remains so, they say, not only because he constitutionally doesn’t trust people but because she doesn’t either. Especially forthright are the people who are granted anonymity on account of their fear of retribution given their power — not just his but hers.”
Baker noted in her “fashion” op-ed that Casey DeSantis was “falling far short” in a bid to draw from “Jackie Kennedy” or Melania Trump.
“We’ve got a Sunshine State Lady Macbeth, in her green cape and white gloves, with her middling husband and her thirst for the crown—and we’ve got a guy who wants to be sitting in a corner, mumbling about the Federalist Papers and gobbling pudding off his fingers,” Baker wrote.
