Florida Student-Run Paper Sends Ben Sasse Packing

Sure, focusing on one candidate is fine. But shielding the other candidates from public knowledge? Yeah you can see why there is some overall akepticism.

And again these aren't Sasse's pet projects, this is giving extreme salaries to friends for working from home and creating positions to give them said salaries. Unless his pet project was grifting?

 

The bloated nature of higher ed is recent, not some continuation of a mindset.

 

Oh, it’s about 20-30 years.

 

It’s not. The original story just sort of blows off that context. Though his initiatives were more probably too polarizing for an operation like the University of Florida.

 

Other than the initiative of handing out remote jobs at high salaries I can't tell you another one he had. And that first one...yeah that's probably going to rub some people the wrong way.

In 17 months you're not doing anything, it probably takes a two full calendar years to make honest asssessments about what you like, don't like, what you want to improve, etc.

Maybe less time than thar at the little schoolhouse he ran, but a real institution of higher learning that has a strong reputation

 

He laid them out in his Twitter response to the whole thing.

I've seen coaches with six brain cells get carte blanche to tear down/rebuild whatever they want in a program in the name of "alignment."

Again, the difference here is that it was a university with lofty rankings that had no interest in major change. And it maybe, relative to other universities, Florida didn't need major change. I think higher ed needs a massive overhaul, personally. A lot of folks don't.

 

Which is recent relatively and not proof that bloat is inherent in the American university model.

 

Ron DeSantis has spent the past 10 years thinking he was God's gift to the Sunshine State and the heir to Donald Trump's MAGA mob. And guess what? He is a little vile, vengeful ass who acts like the fifth-grade bully, using public funding to send immigrants to "Democratic" cities, taunting corporations who actually keep Florida from needing an income tax, and abusing his power as governor to eliminate elected officials and judges who dare to stand up to him. But after his poorly-received Presidential campaign, Ron's supposed influence has started to take a hit.

He won the 2018 election by about 30,000 votes but he acted as if he had a mandate from the entire population. The state legislature has been just a rubber-stamp group for years. And he put enough judges in key places to control the courts as well.

But he's not as popular as he -- and perhaps the Florida GOP -- thinks he is. He pissed off a lot of people in the Orlando area whose salaries are in part created by tourism. And putting a political ally in charge of the flagship university wasn't the slam dunk he thought it would be. There are close to 450,000 living UF alumni, and not all of them are MAGA. Now his attempt to pack local school boards with "Moms For Liberty" looks like it's failing as well.

Like his little white hurricane booties, DeSantis is great at stepping in it with his political stunts, but not so great at figuring out how to save face without looking like a clown. Floridians are used to seeing clowns, not so much the rest of the country.

His political career is murky. I'm certain he'll either run for Senate, or land a gig with a conservative lobbying group with an idea of putting together another Presidential run in 2028. But he was so wooden and unlikeable this time, I can't imagine him gaining traction because he has zero charisma. He's Trump Lite, without Trump's appeal.

 

He’s not even qualified to run Full Sail University

 

Or, as Kevin Bacon/Chip Diller was told by James Naughton/Greg Marmalard in the 1979 unofficial Academy Awards runner-up **- "National Lampoon's Animal House":

"This scoop, it'll look very good on your permanent record, Chip ... and there YOU are! Larry, Kent, there's the captain of the swim team, the editor of the Daily Faberian, and Sidney, Jugdish ..."

**--The Academy refuses to acknowledge the write-in votes.

 

When you lose Matt Gaetz and Randy Fine (a Spacecoast area state senator who's by and large an incredible asshole but is calling out DeSantis more) you're in deep shit. DeSantis never had natural political instincts, is as awkward as an ice-skating giraffe and has classic little man syndrome. Here's hoping he doesn't fuck the state up even worse in the two years he's got left and he can take his Jackie wanna-be trophy wife (I love how he insists on calling her Florida's First Lady) who likely already had plans to redecorate the White House in her laptop and fuck off to Sarasota or Ponte Vedra and dwell in Maga land forever.

 

That little state parks land deal he just tried to sneak through in the past two weeks and got all kinds of universal blowback kind of confirms this. He was desperately trying to get his wife, Casey, to run for governor, so he could do a little George Wallace act, but I don't see that one happening. I actually think he'll go back to Congress as a house rep.