Even as Michiganders were (more-or-less) boosting the futures of the presidential candidates America emphatically does not want — insert “300 million people and this is the best we can do?” lament here — you-know-who was, once more and with emphasis, reminding us about the good thing we missed.
To wit: Tuesday night, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared on split-screen with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan, host of Last Call, to discuss several things but also to remind (mostly Republican) primary voters there once was someone in the race overflowing with the qualities Americans sense are absent in the frontrunners.
OK, whomper of deceased mules, we’ll bite. Such as?
Glad you asked.
Such as the ability to carry out an argument in granular detail in ways experts can appreciate and lay folk can easily grasp. Such as the apparently elusive skill of stringing together sentences in which one flows logically from its predecessor without so much as a note card or detours. Such as being able to make the case, in savory detail, for why a controversial idea was right when it was conceived, right when it was carried out, and even better than imagined in its execution.
Stipulated: DeSantis suspended his campaign for the White House five weeks ago; the GOP nomination is Donald Trump’s to lose; and only fantasists — *blush* — still nurture scenarios in which The Better Man comes off the bench to save his party and the nation.
With that in mind, God bless the 13,000 in the Mitten State who signed on for the fairy tale.
The fact that Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign & still received 13,373 votes in Michigan is impressive. Everyone else who dropped out didnt even come close. Even Vivek couldn't get 4,000 votes.
— Cultist Ls 🇺🇸🐊 (@LoomerLs) February 28, 2024
Anyway, the chief topic in DeSantis’ visit with Sullivan had to do with everyone’s favorite rodent and the company that until recently ruled with a sovereign hand over 43 square miles of prime Central Florida real estate.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is speaking out one year after the state took over Disney’s special governing district, previously known as Reedy Creek. pic.twitter.com/2DuunxsIiz
— CNBC (@CNBC) February 28, 2024
One year ago, DeSantis signed legislation that ended the 56-year reign of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a quasi-government entity negotiated by Walt Disney himself.
In the legal spat that ensued, our friends in the mainstream media — not just in Florida, where the roiling was incessant, but just about everywhere (especially New York and Washington) — took delight in wagging self-righteous fingers at a governor whom (no secret here) they simply cannot abide.
Just as we know the Mickey Mouse Club theme by heart (Why? Because we like it!), so we know the snark aimed at DeSantis over the end of RCID. The Legislature acted, at DeSantis urging, only after Disney’s then-chief Bob Chapek declared the House of the Mouse in opposition to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act. Critics’ pseudonym escapes our memory, but it’s just silly, if we recall correctly.
DeSantis acted in retaliation, they claimed, echoing back-from-retirement boss Bog Iger. The governor and Florida lawmakers were trampling on Disney’s First Amendment rights. (Oh, so companies do have standing under the Constitution. Good to know next time Citizens United comes up.) This was nothing but spite wrapped in governmental bullying. And, by the way, local taxes were sure to soar to support the infrastructure of the Sunshine State’s largest single-location employer.
Some of that may be absolutely true. Post hoc ergo propter hoc is not always fallacious. Chapek stuck Mickey’s nose where DeSantis thought it didn’t belong, and, soon enough, Burbank earned the sour fruits of that mischief.
One year ago, I signed legislation ending what an independent audit found to be one of the worst examples of cronyism in modern U.S. history: Reedy Creek, a local government controlled by a single company; Disney.
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) February 27, 2024
While so many claimed ending the cronyism would be bad for… pic.twitter.com/RMPz5Qkyy8
But none of the rest of those diatribes has proved prophetic, either in court, where Disney’s magnificent attorneys have lost repeatedly, nor in real life, where taxes to run the district’s support operation have gone — oh, what’s the word we’re looking for — down.
By DeSantis’ accounting, operating costs have been trimmed $18.4 million, largely by opening project bidding to all providers, not merely those on the Disney-approved list. Amid the hubbub, says state Commerce Secretary J. Alex Kelly, more businesses have moved into the area in the year since RCID was dissolved.
At a press conference one week ago to mark the anniversary of the bill-signing, DeSantis seemed to take special pleasure spiking the told-you-so football.
“One year ago, I signed legislation ending what an independent audit found to be one of the worst examples of cronyism in modern U.S. history: Reedy Creek, a local government controlled by a single company; Disney,” DeSantis said. “While so many claimed ending the cronyism would be bad for Florida, the result has been transparency and accountability, including a reduction of taxes and local businesses being allowed to compete for projects, saving the district millions of dollars.”
With Sullivan, DeSantis took deserved satisfaction in reiterating the triumph of the act — and the unending losses of its detractors — in its first year.
“There were a lot of people …saying, ‘Oh, people in Central Florida are gonna pay higher taxes; the sky is gonna fall” … all this stuff, those people were wrong.
“Now, obviously, there were folks [who] had a political agenda. And [who] just wanted to hit me, I get that. But there was so much misinformation. And so what has happened is you have saved money; you now have an open procurement process.”
On the legal front, DeSantis added, “A lot of the commentators were saying it was somehow a slam dunk against Florida, which was not consistent with the understanding of proper understanding of the law.”
Just to highlight the record, among those loudest voices who declared DeSantis had picked the wrong fight for the wrong reasons and that Florida would be legally repudiated were the lone candidates remaining in the GOP presidential race: Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
Couple of real soothsayers there.
But, you know, DeSantis may have had lifts in his cowboy boots.
