Nine days after landfall — and 32 days left to go before the General Election — the Lincoln Project has decided it’s not too soon.
Hurricane Ian is making a splash in the political action committee’s advertisement hitting on Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis for spending time on making political points, instead of potentially lifesaving storm preparations.
The Category Four storm’s deadly power is shown in the 30-second ad, “Priorities,” with the wind howling as rousing orchestral music plays. Humans are in harm’s way. Trees fall. Structures are swamped. And the narrator wonders what could have been if the Governor’s focus had been different.
DeSantis, for his part, has argued that all the protocols were followed in preparation for the storm for which he declared a state of emergency five days before the storm hit the state.
But the Lincoln Project seems to think more could have been done. The dead are still being counted, but the ad speculates on whether that number might be lower.
“Imagine how many lives could have been saved if Ron DeSantis had spent enough time in the weeks before hurricane season preparing Southwest Florida,” the narrator intones, as cries of fear are heard at the sight of destruction.
So far, 123 people have died in the storm, according to local officials, ABC News reported.
And then the narrator turns to what DeSantis was focused on two weeks before Hurricane Ian made its Sept. 28 landfall at Cayo Costa and then ravaged the coast of Lee County and swamped Naples.
The ad then moves to scenes from the Sept. 14 landing of Venezuelan refugees landing at Martha’s Vineyard via taxpayer-supported flights, including a mother with a babe in her arms. Those scenes landed DeSantis in national headlines, including a rumored second flight to Delaware, President Joe Biden’s home state.
The hullabaloo over DeSantis’ migrant transport lasted well into the next week. Imagine if he had been more closely watching storm tracks, the ad says, “instead of spending time and money trafficking Venezuelan migrants and trolling the news media.”
The music reaches a crescendo and the narrator says, “Imagine.” The last scene is an overhead of swamped and ruined homes.
The ad will be running digitally only, targeting “persuadable voters who can be moved away from DeSantis,” Lincoln Project officials said.
