It was a little over a week ago that Casey DeSantis, the anti-LGBTQ+ wife of Ron “Don’t Say Gay” DeSantis, released that wildly homophobic ad on her husband’s behalf, and the fallout from it only seems to get getting worse.

Quick recap: On July 6, Mrs. DeSantis released a bizarre ad filled with anti-gay tropes and grossly misrepresented footage from a New York City Pride event, and said “enough is enough” of “woke” Liberals and gay people, who she accused of “coming for our children.”

The video earned widespread condemnation from the Left, as well as from some on the Right, including the Log Cabin Republicans and George Santos/Kitara Ravache, who felt it went too far.

It also earned Mrs. DeSantis the new nickname of “America’s Karen”, to go along with her other nickname, “Walmart Melania.”

Paul Costello worked with both first lady Rosalynn Carter, as well as Kitty Dukakis, when her husband was the Democratic Party’s nominee in 1988. In a new interview with Daily Beast, he said he’s totally baffled by what Casey is doing.

“It’s surprising because the spouse of the candidate is supposed to soften his image, a role that has been written about ad nauseam,” he said. “She’s a likable person who could be a great advocate for her husband. She should let him do whatever he needs to do politically and then tell the story of his family.”

“I don’t know what going down the rabbit hole of the culture war gets them.”

Costello seems to be ignoring the obvious in his criticism of Mrs. DeSantis: Maybe she actually believes what she said in that video. Maybe it wasn’t just a ploy to help get her husband elected. Maybe she shares his hatred of LGBTQ+ people and it’s all in earnest.

One DeSantis staffer recently told Politico that Casey is “even more paranoid” than Ron. 

And Elaine Kamarck at the Brookings Institution added that she’s “reinforcing the (anti-woke) message” that he’s been pushing for months in “an effort to mobilize women who are fearful and suspicious of all the cultural change that is going on.”

None of what Casey’s been doing seems to be paying off for her gay-hating husband’s flailing presidential campaign, however.

His poll numbers, both nationally as well as in his home state, are in the toilet, and just yesterday it was reported he’s on the verge of losing support from one the Republican party’s biggest kingmakers: the Murdoch family.

The New York Times published a story digging into Fox News’ increasingly tough coverage of DeSantis, who used to be a network darling.

In a defiant interview yesterday, DeSantis, who’s trailing Donald Trump in the polls for the 2024 GOP presidential primary, called his wife “incredibly strong” and “a fantastic mother and a great wife” and brushed off the whole “America’s Karen” nickname by saying, “She and I kind of shrug it off because we know it just shows they view her as a threat.”

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