Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently interviewed Kellyanne Conway, campaign manager for Donald Trump‘s 2016 presidential race. The two political veterans spoke about the current GOP presidential race and candidates including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has declared a “war on woke” in Florida and on the campaign trail.
Conway, who served as Senior Counselor to the President in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2020, says DeSantis is making a mistake by focusing so intensely on the culture war issues.
Conway says, sure, Republican voters are “listening about kids being indoctrinated” in school, and allows that DeSantis did “a smart thing” when he started out saying students in Kindergarten through 3rd grade should not be exposed to sexual content of any nature, “but he doesn’t know how to take yes for an answer, he took it all the way to 12th grade.”
She says: “The fact is, there’s a huge difference between an 8-year-old and an 18-year-old. I think going from 3rd all the way to 12th was a mistake. And then he just kept going, he’s picking on Mickey Mouse, he’s picking a fight with Bob Iger, which he’s not going to win.”
Conway suggests DeSantis (and all Republican candidates) would be better off talking about school choice and charter schools and opportunity scholarships. In DeSantis’s case, Conway is giving actionable advice: in March the Governor signed House Bill (HB) 1 expanding available school choice options for all students in Florida by “eliminating financial eligibility restrictions and the current enrollment cap.”
