Welcome to the Sunday Gloaming, a newsletter summarizing the weekend before it’s over.
What happened: Ron DeSantis’s fatherhood was analyzed by the New York Times, while Casey DeSantis’s importance to her husband was scrutinized by the Washington Post. Joe Biden continued to employ apologists at Axios and invent new expressions to confound the public, while his son Hunter attempted to weasel out of child support in Arkansas. Tim Scott appeared on Fox News Sunday to offer his alternative to Republican pugnaciousness, saying, “Fighting is good, but winning is better.” He declined to answer whether he’d pardon Trump (should Scott win the presidency). Nikki Haley bid her husband, Major Michael Haley, a South Carolina National Guard officer, goodbye as he deployed to Africa for a year.
Dogging the DeSantises
“Ron DeSantis Is Young, Has Little Kids and Wants America to Know It,” reads a headline from the New York Times. In the story, Nicholas Nehamas and Ruth Igielnik write:
One of the few candidates with kids still at home, Mr. DeSantis regularly highlights his parental worries about schools and popular culture as he presses his right-wing social agenda.
When he signed the state budget on Thursday, he joked that a tax break on one of parenthood’s most staggering expenses — diapers — had come too late for his family, though not by much.
“I came home, and my wife’s like, ‘Why didn’t you do that in 2019 when our kids were still in diapers?’” Mr. DeSantis said.
The evident goal is to draw a stark contrast with his main rivals, President Biden, 80, and former President Donald J. Trump, who just turned 77, both grandfathers who have sons (Hunter and Don Jr.) older than Mr. DeSantis. Voters have expressed concern about the age and fitness of both men, especially Mr. Biden.
The piece details a man who is aware of the power of a family that looks like what most Americans imagine their families to be — young and beautiful. Of course, the Times being the Times, they note:
His conservative views on abortion, climate change and how race is taught — among other issues — have left Mr. DeSantis out of step with many members of his own generation. Majorities of voters in his age bracket want abortion to be legal in all or most cases, think climate change is a very serious problem and support the Black Lives Matter movement. Only about one in four voters between the ages of 35 and 49 have a favorable view of Mr. DeSantis, according to the Quinnipiac poll.
The Times is factually incorrect — 39 percent of those between 35 and 49 had a favorable view of DeSantis in that May poll. A comparison is made to the similarly youthful Barack Obama of 2008, who enjoyed immense popularity with people his age. The Times doesn’t explain why it matters that DeSantis is unpopular with those his age. It so happens that DeSantis is second only to Trump in popularity on the Republican ticket — other GOP candidates rate much more poorly on name recognition. (More than half the respondents reported that they “hadn’t heard enough” about Nikki Haley.)
Then there’s the Washington Post‘s lengthy profile of Casey DeSantis by Ruby Cramer, which is, if nothing else, a fascinating effort by a left-wing female reporter to ease around adjectives and clichés that sound misogynistic to many ears. Cramer has to reckon with a conservative woman who is smart enough to trim her social life to the bare minimum in the service of a higher goal while also managing to be charming and comely in public — a rare combination. Cramer is incapable of finding anyone close to the DeSantises, with every possible angle accounted for. Amusingly, even Casey’s hairdresser refuses to talk. Cramer writes:
As a unit, Ron-and-Casey, one word, have become one of the most guarded and feared partnerships in politics. In the shifting light, they could have the look of a traditional husband and wife — or of two modern partners, coequals in life and work, a couple in their 40s, next-generation. Often, he deferred to her. And often, she deferred to him.
The whole thing is worth reading.
Tuning into a Biden press conference, an American viewer can expect to hear something along the lines of “bippo-no-bungus” or “sala-ma-goox” come out of the mouth of the president. The latest bout of linguistic creativity was in describing the evolution of pistols into guns — these new Pokemon are getting out of hand.
Lastly, happy Father’s Day. I hope it had all the quietude, new machinery, and adoration from the kids and wife that can make the day special. For my part, I drove up to the cottage where my dad was rumbling through the woods on a backhoe repairing trails. He seemed pleased with the delivery of a few of his favorite things: a Karuba coffee, glazed donuts, and a copy of the Wall Street Journal.
While describing a recent garage renovation, I wrote of fathers’ generational importance regarding material assistance and, more significantly, directed purpose:
Here in the garage on a beautiful Wisconsin Friday, I sit in a steel chair that my Grandpa Selle bought in college and type at a desk my Grandpa Abel ran a company from for decades, across from a leather wingback chair my wife’s grandfather brought from England. Behind me is a toolbox my great-grandfather built before my father was alive, before me are framed blueprints that my Grandpa Abel drew — a self-taught mechanical engineer. And here am I, writing about things I’d never know if not for the many men who taught me, freely giving of their possessions and stores of knowledge.
Weekend short suggestion (for those who know): Ray Bradbury’s “The Rocket Man” (p. 63).