Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Dear Dr. Ads,
There I was, minding my own business and reading yesterday’s edition of Politico Playbook, when I came across this item about the new Trump Super PAC ad running in Iowa.
TAKING NO CHANCES: Trump’s Make America Great Again super PAC is ramping up for ads against DeSantis in Iowa, “a shift in strategy after months of focusing their messaging on their likely general election opponent,” NYT’s Maggie Haberman and Shane Goldmacher report. The ad campaign will total “hundreds of thousands” of dollars and “aims to paint Mr. DeSantis, with less than three months before the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, as insufficiently conservative, by accusing him of supporting statehood for Puerto Rico.”
What’s the deal here, Doc – are the Trumpiacs ticked off because DeSantis knows that Puerto Ricans are American citizens, while the former Cheeto in Chief did not?
– Super PACman
Dear SuperBro,
Apparently the MAGAts have moved beyond attacking DeSantis as RINO Ron to scorched-earth depictions of him as Radical/Socialist/Marxist Ron.
The pitch: “Liberals have a plan to make Puerto Rico a state, adding two Democrats to the Senate, and Ron DeSantis sided with the liberals’ power play. DeSantis actually sponsored the bill to make Puerto Rico a state . . . [something something pack the court, something something reckless spending, ban guns, give amnesty to illegal aliens] . . . DeSantis sided with the liberals and sold out Iowa conservatives. Ron DeSantis is just plain wrong.”
That could be, but the spot is kinda wrong too, as the Times piece points out.
As a congressman, Mr. DeSantis, along with several other members, co-sponsored a bill that did not openly call for statehood for Puerto Rico, but laid out a path by which it could be accomplished. Mr. DeSantis’s state has a number of Puerto Rican constituents, and his support for an effort to explore a pathway to statehood was politically resonant in Florida.
Then again, “actually sponsored the bill to make Puerto Rico a state” is close enough for political advertising, right? In an age where a once and perhaps future president can say “Hezbollah is smart” and cause barely a ripple in the mediaverse, no one’s gonna get worked up about some minor distortion of the facts.
The corn’s been off that cob for a long time, my friends.