In the last few weeks the mainstream media have not only buried the presidential ambitions of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, they've driven a stake through the corpse's heart and stuffed its mouth with garlic. The epitaphs have been quick in coming; Maureen Dowd's recent column in the New York times may serve as representative of the conventional wisdom.
Why did DeSantis' exploratory campaign flame out so spectacularly? Here Dowd, standing in for dozens of commentators, judges that DeSantis was simply not likable (in Dowd's world, everything in the known universe is reducible to sophomore class in high school, and people elect politicians for the same reasons they form lunchroom cliques).
