America Is About to Meet Casey DeSantis

Politico profiles Florida's first lady, suggests she is both an asset and liability to her husband
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted May 21, 2023 6:45 AM CDT
America Is About to Meet Casey DeSantis
Casey DeSantis listens to her husband, Gov. Ron DeSantis speak during a fundraising picnic for US Rep. Randy Feenstra May 13, 2023, in Sioux Center, Iowa.   (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Ron DeSantis is expected to enter the 2024 race as soon as this week. Which means the nation is about to meet Florida's first lady, Casey DeSantis. Michael Kruse of Politico has written a lengthy profile of the 42-year-old, one that makes clear Casey has been a key figure—perhaps the key figure—in her husband's political rise. In the way most obvious to the public, she is an "antidote for her sometimes awkward husband, social in a way that he is not, charismatic in a way that he is not, generally and seemingly at ease in the spotlight in a way that he so often and so evidently is not," writes Kruse. But the flip side of that is that she is seen by her critics as too powerful and vengeful, unwilling to cede her role as her husband's No. 1 adviser and quick to boot from his orbit those she doesn't trust.

The big example cited on the latter front is her role in ousting renowned political operative Susie Wiles from Team DeSantis, with Wiles now helping run Donald Trump's campaign. The story includes an old quote by Trump ally Roger Stone likening Casey to Lady MacBeth, "an agent, in other words, of her husband’s undoing," writes Kruse. He finds that the narrative isn't quite that simple. The gist of the profile: Yes, Casey can help her husband's awkwardness with the public, but she "can also accentuate, even exacerbate, his hubris, and his paranoia, and his vaulting ambition—because those are all traits that they share," writes Kruse. In short: "He wouldn’t be where he is without her. He might not get to where he wants to go because of her." Read the full story, which Fox News notes is being characterized by DeSantis supporters as a "hit piece." (More Ron DeSantis stories.)

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