![]() Online, they could find ugly conspiracy theories about her breast cancer - that she had exaggerated or even faked it for political gain. They criticized her for going by her middle name, Casey, instead of her first name, Jill, even though she has always gone by Casey. They mocked or admired her white gloves and caped gowns - an imitation Jackie Kennedy or Melania Trump, depending on who was looking. People looked to Casey as a way to explain something about the governor - to reinforce or mitigate their ideas about his hardness. People feared Hillary Clinton for making no secret of her power. ![]() People feared Nancy Reagan as the calculating secret power in the White House. People feared Barbara Bush, whose image as “America’s grandmother” cloaked a caustic wit and opprobrium. ![]() There is a collective, tacit sense that when she oversteps her role, in what she does or says or wears, we will know it when we see it, even though the role itself has never been well defined or sufficiently updated. People have ideas about what a first lady should be. There is fear of a woman exerting control where, traditionally, she should not - fear of hidden influence, communicated in intimate spaces, behind closed doors, in darkened SUVs. There is fear of crossing the person closest to the politician - in this case, his wife. But over the years, the practice has yielded a tradition of bad, gendered clichés, in which fear and suspicion glimmer just below the surface. To try to define the relationship between politician and spouse is to muddle around in a marriage that only two people really know. But there were friends and colleagues and people she mentored who didn’t hear from her again. She had always been exceptionally private. She deactivated her cellphone number and didn’t give out the new one widely. Adams Street, the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee. And then she was packing boxes again, this time to move to 700 N. In 2018, she was leaving TV altogether to help him run for governor. In 2016, she was home with a newborn while he spent weekdays in Washington. In 2013, she was packing up their house in Sawgrass, a gated club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., to move to his new congressional district, making her commute to work an hour and seven minutes each way. In 2012, she was working one TV show in Jacksonville, and planning to launch another, while spending her weekends knocking on doors for her husband’s first congressional campaign. Where was Casey? In 2011, she was in the back of small Republican gatherings, handing out copies of the book her husband had paid to publish, “Dreams From Our Founding Fathers,” a treatise on constitutional conservatism that mocked Barack Obama’s best-selling memoir. ![]() She knew the earpiece he should use for live interviews, because she had spent 15 years in television, even though, at first, the earpiece was uncomfortable in his ear, at which point an aide said, “Casey got this for you,” and that was the end of the conversation about the earpiece. ![]() She knew the cowboy boots he should wear, even though, at first, he complained that they hurt his feet, until a staffer suggested he buy dress shoes instead, at which point he said, “Casey got them for me,” and that was the end of the conversation about the cowboy boots. She knew his schedule, down to every meeting and call and fundraiser and congressional vote, because she asked to be copied on every calendar entry. She knew his walking path at events, the people he’d stand next to on a stage. She knew the staff he should hire, former aides said, the invitations he should accept and the invitations he should decline. She knew, starting with his early days in politics, when Ron was still a member of Congress, elected at the age of 34, how she wanted to figure in his world. Casey DeSantis was on the other side of the room. ![]()
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