Efforts at damage control by the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is backfiring by drawing even more attention to the sources of his political funding.
A new editorial published by the Sun-Sentinel newspaper on Friday chided DeSantis for his overly defensive reaction to a report about his largest donor.
"What's with Gov. Ron DeSantis and his spokeswoman, Christina Pushaw?" the Sun-Sentinel editorial board asked. "Their high-volume squawking over an Associated Press story about his biggest campaign contributor has been so over the top and out of proportion to the article itself that it calls to mind Shakespeare's phrase, 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks.' That has been a metaphor for suspicious insincerity ever since 'Hamlet.'"
The editorial board noted that the story might have disappeared had Pushaw not started "tweeting and forwarding provocative comments that brought online abuse to reporter Brendan Farrington and got her Twitter account frozen for 12 hours."
The newspaper said Pushaw's $120,000 salary should be paid for by DeSantis' campaign.
.@AP urges DeSantis to end harassing tweets aimed at reporter:https://apne.ws/fH1ghP2— AP CorpComm (@AP CorpComm) 1629488345
"Given the underlying issue, though, DeSantis should think twice about drawing more attention to how much money he raises and where he gets it.There is something simply deeply, irredeemably wrong with a system in which anyone can give $10.75 million to a candidate. That's what [Ken] Griffin has given to the Friends of Ron DeSantis political committee over the past three years," the newspaper explained.
The newspaper listed some of the 150 donations he has received in excess of $100,000 and argued Florida is effectively an oligarchy because the voters keep losing out to the elites.
"That's what DeSantis and spokesman Pushaw don't want you to know," the editorial board wrote.
The governor went ballistic over an @AP report on his ties to an investor in Regeneron, which manufactures the monoclonal antibody treatments DeSantis is heavily promoting. But these protests belie a sad truth about the moneyed oligarchy in which we live.https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-op-edit-campaign-money-pushaw-desantis-20210827-co6j6hxa5reizgtndspox54s7a-story.html\u00a0\u2026— Sun Sentinel Opinion (@Sun Sentinel Opinion) 1630086056
In addition, DeSantis' Surgeon General has resigned. More information appears in the video below.
Florida Surgeon General leaving Ron DeSantis’ administration amid coronavirus surgeyoutu.be
