Casey DeSantis is not a secret weapon.
We are sitting together in February and I mention this trope.
Florida’s first lady rolls her eyes at the thought. He is not a weapon. She usually stays away from media and spotlight. She is not trying to be a star.
At the time, her husband, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, was already heavily in talks about an upcoming presidential run.
Casey is under new scrutiny.
Is he the mastermind behind the operation? Was she always planning to top her man? Did Casey always know Ron would make it?
Three months later, articles like this, about him and about them, are standard.
Last week, Michael Cruise wrote just one paint-by-numbers piece in Politico. In it Casey is “detached” but “extraordinarily important and extraordinarily involved.”
Cruz’s piece is peppered with references to grifters and haters, people who either don’t know DeSantis well or rely on his downfall to collect a check.
It’s understandable why they would inspire envy and anger from the public, just as it’s understandable that a liberal media outlet would exist to cover it.
The couple next door
When you see the DeSantises together, they feel like a young couple who live close. They are the easy joke of a couple comfortable together.
He marvels at how beautiful she is, she jokes that he confuses the children before bed.
Casey told me how she met a cute Navy guy and didn’t really consider how successful he would be.
I tell him about my favorite comedian, Nate Bergatze, who is currently enjoying great success, and is thinking about meeting his wife.
He jokes that his wife was a waitress at the restaurant where he was a host and she didn’t think he was smart enough to be a server, yes, he has surpassed her expectations.
Casey laughs, because unlike many people in the political world she has a sense of humor, but no, it wasn’t.
“I knew Ron was smart, came from a good family, was a good person, but never in a million years thought where he would end up.”
She talked about the early days when she was a reporter covering the PGA Tour and wrote her first book, “Dreams from Our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama.”
Casey acted as her booking agent and called her around to get speaking engagements.
They will travel long distances to speak to small groups of people. “We spent more money on gas than we did on the book,” she laughs.
It was when she saw him give his book talks that he began to see his moves.
“I saw his intelligence and discipline for reading and analysis. He gets the data and does the research himself. He is constantly challenging himself. “
“People would say to him, ‘You should run for office,’ and I found myself agreeing with them. He has such a talent for communicating complex policy in an easy way. He gets so deep.”
His recent travels have been very different. The crowd meets the popular governor. Casey is having fun with it, telling me “Ron and I had a lot of fun last weekend in Iowa.
We argued for most of the trip about which gas station served the best pizza and we both agreed it was a chain called Casey’s. So if you hear Ron around Iowa saying “Casey’s the best” ask him if he’s talking about me or the pizza!
Pivots back
America loves the political couple but the worry in conservative circles is always that the spouse, usually the wife, will pull the politician to the left.
But Casey is able to easily articulate the governor’s positions, and his own projects, and tie them to a conservative philosophy.
I’ve heard many politicians’ wives talk about their pet projects and I’ve never heard anything like this before.
Casey is working on several initiatives, political and not.
During the election, she headed Mamas for DeSantis, a mobilization effort to target Florida mothers and grandmothers in political action.
She lights up when she talks about her passion project, Hope Florida, which uses the unifying power of government to connect private and religious organizations with people who need help.
It’s an innovative way to use government resources to create a resource bank of people who need assistance and introduce them to private organizations that can provide that assistance, without turning that assistance into another massive government program. are ready to offer
Casey’s opinion is to use the connection to help people. She very publicly battled breast cancer in 2021 and this experience has focused her on creating links to help others.
Another important project she is working on is the Cancer Connect Collaborative which promises to analyze and rethink the way Florida approaches cancer research, diagnosis and treatments.
These are not the usual first lady fluff projects.
When she talks about cancer statistics, and getting treatments that work to people who need them, it’s personal and it’s profound.
I tell her that when I told the girlfriends that I would talk to her, they all wanted to know how she was doing.
But also: “How does she do it?” and “How does she look like that with three little kids?” Popular questions were requests.
As for her looks, Casey shares that she gets her share of internet hate about her looks but she doesn’t want people to feel sorry for her.
People make fun of his straight hair. “I don’t let it get to me. I’m lucky I even have hair.”
She lights up when she talks about her husband. “He has a gift from God. He is the real deal, fighting for the right causes. “
As for him? “I would move mountains to help him because he is a good man who is doing it right.”
As her husband gets closer to jumping into the Republican presidential primary, Casey will inevitably be compared to other political wives in the spotlight.
Republican women are victims of terrible news coverage.
Casey overcomes hatred.
For him, perspective is everything.
“Tomorrow is not guaranteed. I didn’t know if I would get through tomorrow. I am honest to God by coming here. I won’t let everyday things bother me. I am so thankful for another day. I just believed that everything would be fine. It is not a given that I will grow old and retire. Other things don’t matter. “
