Gov. DeSantis, stop messing in Texas and save Florida from COVID

[The Barbarian]

By Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board

Orlando Sentinel |

Jul 20, 2021 at 6:00 AM
Florida was all over the news this past weekend with one of the nation’s biggest spikes in COVID cases and hospitalizations.

And where was Gov. Ron DeSantis as this health crisis resurged? Visiting hospitals? Consulting with physicians and public health experts? Huddling with his staff to brainstorm ways of persuading more Floridians to take the vaccine that would nip this pandemic in the bud?

Nope. Florida’s governor was in Texas, 1,000 miles from Tallahassee, burnishing his 2024 presidential ambitions with a visit to the southern border.

The governor was back in Florida on Sunday but, once again, not to focus on the COVID health crisis but this time to make fun of Anthony Fauci in a speech before a crowd of young conservatives in Tampa.

“Fauci gets invited to throw out the first pitch at the baseball game last year but he doesn’t know how to throw a baseball,” the 42-year-old governor said of the 80-year-old public health official’s bungled attempt.

“He did the worst first pitch that I’ve ever seen anybody do,” DeSantis crowed.


Always classy, our governor, who then encouraged the Turning Point USA crowd to go buy campaign merch emblazoned with Fauci mockery.


Predictably, DeSantis said nothing in his speech about how Florida has become the poster child (except perhaps for Arkansas) for the surging number of COVID cases attributed to the wildly contagious Delta variant.
...
At the moment, it’s as if DeSantis has washed his hands of the matter and moved on to elections, borders, critical race theory, mocking Fauci or whatever else will get him a headline.

And every few days, nearly as many people are dying from COVID as died in the recent collapse of a condominium in South Florida.

“Leadership is about handling problems.”

That’s what DeSantis told the conservative TPUSA crowd on Sunday.

We agree. Completely.

Please, governor, we’re begging you, handle the COVID problem. Be a leader.
We’re begging you, Gov. DeSantis, stop messing in Texas and save Florida from COVID | Editorial

The pandemic is making a strong comeback in Florida, while DeSantis is out campaigning for his presidential hopes.

 

[Isilwen]

I will be helping to vote DeSantis out next year!

 

[The Barbarian]

In normal times, Florida could afford an empty suit like DeSantis. But these are not normal times. There's a critical need for leadership, and DeSantis is in over his head.

 

[GOD Shines Forth!]

I think DeSantis would make a great President or VP. It makes sense for him to travel like that if he wants the job.

 

[Isilwen]

I think DeSantis would make a great President or VP. It makes sense for him to travel like that if he wants the job.

Yeah, no. He would not come close to making a good President or VP. I know I wouldn't ever vote for him,

 

[GOD Shines Forth!]

Yeah, no. He would not come close to making a good President or VP. I know I wouldn't ever vote for him,

Of the people willing to run (as of present) he is the only one I’m remotely rooting for. The article complaining about him leaving Florida is childish.

 

[Isilwen]

Of the people willing to run (as of present) he is the only one I’m remotely rooting for. The article complaining about him leaving Florida is childish.

I'm not even talking about the article. I live in Florida and will not vote for the man after how he has handled this pandemic. He puts money ahead of lives and is following in Trump's footsteps and making fun of those he doesn't agree with. That is not a president or VP that we need.

 

[GOD Shines Forth!]

I'm not even talking about the article. I live in Florida and will not vote for the man after how he has handled this pandemic. He puts money ahead of lives and is following in Trump's footsteps and making fun of those he doesn't agree with. That is not a president or VP that we need.

Don’t vote for him.

 

[Isilwen]

Don’t vote for him.

I didn't in 2018 and won't in 2022 or 2024 if he makes a run for president or if it's Trump as his running mate for president, then yeah, nope, don't need that man in office again either.

 

[Arcangl86]

Of the people willing to run (as of present) he is the only one I’m remotely rooting for. The article complaining about him leaving Florida is childish.

Florida is in a state of crisis, and instead of trying to manage it, he's halfway across the country for a photo-op that he can use when he's running for office in three years. I would be upset too. He should be focusing on the job he has now, instead of trying to audition for one that won't even be open for three years.

 

[GOD Shines Forth!]

Florida is in a state of crisis, and instead of trying to manage it, he's halfway across the country for a photo-op that he can use when he's running for office in three years. I would be upset too. He should be focusing on the job he has now, instead of trying to audition for one that won't even be open for three years.

Every state is in a "state of crisis", continually, forever and ever amen. Gotta venture out, it’s a big world.

 

[Phronema]

Gov DeSantis was in TX over the weekend according the article, and was back in FL sometime on Sunday. I highly doubt his absence which totaled one day, or so during a weekend when other legislators, and state agency heads are at home would've made much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.

This is an article by a left leaning paper in a left leaning area of FL meant to smear a guy from the other party which is nothing new. And with the way the American public's attention span is this will all be forgotten about in the next week, or so.

 

[Albion]

It looks like the "Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board" doth protest too much.

The article does not make the case that those armchair experts in everything that happens thought it would.

Indeed, some of the complaints are almost laughable for being so labored and exaggerated.

He was out of the state for several days during which we are supposed to think he could have ended the Covid crisis in Florida? Really?

Addressing the members of a politically conservative organization, not the Associated Press or some state legislature, he made several very mild political jokes just the way any other politician would have done under the circumstances.

So what? Oh, that's right...it must mean that "DeSantis has washed his hands of the [Covid] matter and moved on to elections, borders, critical race theory, mocking Fauci or whatever else will get him a headline."

It's ridiculous.

However, it did get him a headline--thanks to the "Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board." (!) Make sense of that decision of theirs, dear reader, if it's possible.

And all because the Governor made a scheduled speech one weekend and, in passing, offered a few jokes about the confused and contradictory policies that everyone knows have come to be expected from the man who was supposed to be "the" expert as regards the pandemic.

 

[Brihaha]

DeSantis, like other republican opportunists, does well campaigning. It's literally all I've seen him do from afar. Trying to capitalize politically on a pandemic and the border, yet oblivious to the governing aspects of his job. If he's the best republicans can hope for they will not win the white house in 2024.

 

[Albion]

Gov DeSantis was in TX over the weekend according the article, and was back in FL sometime on Sunday.

...and notice how the editorial made a point of saying that Texas is "1000 miles from Tallahassee" as though everything would have been different if he'd instead flown to Atlanta and been out of the state of Florida for exactly the same number of days.

 

[Albion]

Florida is in a state of crisis, and instead of trying to manage it, he's halfway across the country for a photo-op that he can use when he's running for office in three years.

Exactly what would make a picture of him shaking hands or giving a speech be a blockbuster of a photo-op so long as it occurred "halfway across the country"...

as opposed to the same thing occurring at any nearly identical event closer to home???

 

[Arcangl86]

Exactly what would make a picture of him shaking hands or giving a speech be a blockbuster of a photo-op so long as it occurred "halfway across the country"...

as opposed to the same thing occurring at any nearly identical event closer to home???

He couldn't do an identical event closer to home since Florida isn't a border state. The whole point of the trip was to say he visited the border.

 

[Albion]

He couldn't do an identical event closer to home since Florida isn't a border state. The whole point of the trip was to say he visited the border.

Florida is the recipient of an enormous number of immigrants from all over the Caribbean and Middle America, so I don't think that's much of an argument.

Besides, the Orlando Sentinel (the basis for this thread) wasn't bellyaching about pictures of Governor DeSantis at the border!

 

[Lukaris]

It seems likely that he went to the border to investigate the spread of covid 19 among various issues related to the border crisis.

 

[Arcangl86]

Florida is the recipient of an enormous number of immigrants from all over the Caribbean and Middle America, so I don't think that's much of an argument.

Besides, the Orlando Sentinel (the basis for this thread) wasn't bellyaching about pictures of Governor DeSantis at the border!

The beginning of the article is about how DeSantis was at the border instead of in Florida trying ot get COVID-19 under control in is state.