Good Wednesday morning:
Gov. Ron DeSantis didn’t sign the transgender sports ban last week, or on Monday. He signed it on Tuesday. The timing matters — it was the first day of Pride Month.
Was it intended to rub salt in the wound, or did the Governor add insult to injury by accident?
Thanks to Florida Politics’ own A.G. Gancarski, we know the (non-)answer. He asked the question that needed to be asked: “What message are you sending to LGBT people signing this on the first day of Pride Month?”
According to DeSantis, “It’s not a message to anything other than saying we’re going to protect fairness in women’s sports. We believe that it’s important to have integrity in competition, and we think that it’s important to be able to compete on a level playing field. You’ve seen what’s happened when you don’t have that.”
News outlets far and wide seized on the angle. ABC News, the Orlando Sentinel, and even DeSantis’ favorite platform, Fox News, were among the many to dedicate headline space to it.
https://youtu.be/HTHAfv0sI7M
None noted the reporter who asked the question. We’re not dinging them. It’s not even readily apparent who asked in a video of the event. And, of course, A.G. is not the newsmaker here.
But he still deserves a shoutout for asking the tough question and getting an answer from the Governor. It’s what we strive for at Florida Politics and yesterday, A.G. delivered.
A couple of other notes:
— How Americans went from ‘yes we can’ to MAGA: Who better than to tell this story than former President Barack Obama, who coined the ‘yes we can’ slogan in 2008? He does just that in a must-listen podcast with The New York Times’ Ezra Klein. Told through Obama’s sleek oratory skills, the history-making ex-President addresses his own failures, new opportunities, and the polarization of American politics. Listen here.
— How Nikki Fried can turn 2018 victory into 2022 success: It wasn’t much, but Fried eked out a victory and became Florida’s only statewide elected Democrat. Now, she’ll face a tough Primary and an even tougher General Election (should she win her party’s nomination) for Governor in 2022. Data guru Matthew Isbell of MCIMaps analyzed her 2018 strategy to imagine what Fried’s next move might be. Making the case that she already did what others couldn’t in 2018, Isbell predicts, might be her strongest strategy.
Republished with permission[/vc_message]
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