ANNALS OF DeSANTISTAN: Ashley Moody's devotion to partisan warfare paid big dividends | Opinion. (Nate Monroe, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union, January 17, 2025)

One Party Rule Report: Our reckless, reckless, fetid former Koch Industries supported craven Congressman from St. Johns County, Florida Boy Governor RONALD DION DeSANTIS's choice for United States Senator leaves much to be desired.  The Ashley Moody choice reminds me of George Stephen LeMieux, the prior apparatchik pick for senator under then-Republican Governor CHARLES CRIST, who picked his own Governor's race campaign manager to be U.S. Senator.  Yes. CRIST picked his deputy AG George Stephen Le Mieux after the resignation under federal ethics investigation of Senator Mel Martinez.  After leaving the Senate, George LeMieux went back to his former corporate law firm and is now chair of GUNSTER.

Since circa 1920, thanks to corruption scandals and the resulting 17th Amendment, We, the People have elected our United States Senators, while leaving vacancies up to Governors, evidently leading to continued corruption, as in Illinois: after Senator Barack Obama's election as President led to vacancy, there was rampant Governor's office criminality, confirmed by a federal jury guilty verdict, in Governor Rodney Blagojvich's holding an auction in a wiretapped attempt to select a replacement Senator. 

From Jacksonville, Florida Times Union: 

Ashley Moody's devotion to partisan warfare paid big dividends | Opinion

Nate Monroe

Jacksonville Florida Times-Union

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It's admittedly hard to remember, but not so long ago Ashley Moody was the sensible one.

In her 2018 campaign for attorney general, Moody, a Plant City native whose rise in politics and law were meteoric, leaned on her past experience as a youthful and respected local judge and former federal prosecutor. She presented herself as someone more interested in non-partisan, less inflammatory priorities, like fighting the opioid epidemic. It was a notable contrast with her well-funded opponent — the crown prince of a Pensacola car dealership who was peddling far-right slop about immigration — who, sensing this potential moderation within her, attacked Moody as a liberal in disguise.

Moody was, it turns out, disguising something else: an addiction to political performance and a seemingly endless capacity for partisan warfare. The transformation of her office into a kind of far-right think tank tracked roughly with Florida's own rapid ruby-red shift. The Moody of 2018 is long gone.

There was not a Republican priority too outlandish for her office to fully embrace, including election denialism. On matters high-profile and low, Moody fought the federal government even when it forced her into absurd contortions.

There is no better example of this zealotry than Florida's refusal to expand eligibility for KidCare, the state's version of a health insurance program intended to cover the children of working-class families. Moody is leading a legal challenge against the Agency for Health Care Administration over a dispute about how easy it should be to kick kids off coverage for non-payment (Florida, of course, believes it should be easier).

How does one end up in this position — to be advocating that children should suffer swift punishment because of the mistakes made by their parents?

The good news for Moody is that this devotion to nihilism finally landed her a coveted prize indeed: Gov. Ron DeSantis this week appointed Moody to Marco Rubio's former U.S. Senate seat.

or DeSantis, Moody's appeal was obvious: She was the only member of the Florida cabinet who endorsed his ruinous presidential campaign, and her elevation allows him to name his chief of staff to the attorney general job she's leaving behind. Once DeSantis names a replacement for ex-Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis, who is running for Congress, he'll have appointed two of the three members of the cabinet beside himself.

In a state dominated by Donald Trump and Trump loyalists, DeSantis can, for just a bit longer, cloister himself in a comfortable cabinet and pine over the brief but sweeter days when he, and not the aging president-elect, was supposed to be the future of the Republican Party.

A few Florida Democrats, mistakenly remembering the Moody of Christmas past, expressed cautious optimism that Moody might suddenly rediscover a passion for good sense and moderation when she gets to Washington. That is a pipedream.

For Moody, overcoming her treachery to Trump during the presidential campaign will require nothing less than utter fealty to the new president if she has any long-term designs on that Senate seat. Fortunately for her, having done DeSantis' bidding the past six years, Moody will find this an easy transition.

Nate Monroe is a Florida columnist for the USA Today Network. Follow him on Twitter @NateMonroeTU. Email him at nmonroe@gannett.com.