WHEN ROADWAYS COLLAPSE: A ‘Test’ for DeSantis, but Business as Usual for Buttigieg.
Buttigieg’s intervention [after Sunday’s I-95 collapse in Philadelphia] has not inspired any indication from the political press that Biden’s transportation secretary has something to prove, though he most certainly does. His tenure in this role has been one of the more eventful transportation administrations in recent memory, not because it was typified by the secretary’s unique competence or his agency’s fleet-footedness. Moreover, Buttigieg’s political aspirations transcend the office he presently occupies, and he is often cited in polls alongside prominent Democrats such as Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren as a potential future presidential candidate. The collapse of I-95 should be as much of a “test” of Buttigieg as the aftermath of Hurricane Ian and the damage it inflicted on Florida’s roadways was a “test” for Governor Ron DeSantis.
Nearly a week before Ian’s landfall, in late September of last year, political observers forecast the “challenge” the storm and its aftermath would pose to the governor. “To a national audience that knows him mostly as a provocateur,” a Wall Street Journal report observed, the storm would “test” DeSantis and challenge his characterizations of Florida’s relative livability. In particular, NPR observed that the speed with which “roads repaired and bridges reconnected” would either prove DeSantis’s mettle or showcase his shortcomings. In the storm’s aftermath, some even wondered if it was possible to rebuild in coastal areas of the country beset by “natural disasters intensified by the climate crisis.” Those who weren’t inclined to surrender the coasts to the ravages of nature were at least convinced that DeSantis could either concentrate on rebuilding Florida or run for the White House, but not both.
DeSantis passed this test, and it didn’t seem particularly strenuous. A severed link between Pine Island and Fort Myers was rebuilt in fewer than three days. The causeway over open water that couples Sanibel Island with the Florida mainland reopened within three weeks of Ian’s landfall — twelve days ahead of schedule. Florida voters registered their overwhelming satisfaction with DeSantis’s emergency response in polling, and they ratified his performance in November with a 20-point victory over his Democratic opponent.
Hopefully Buttigieg can quickly get back to his main job of posing for Time magazine covers and being feted with fawning Wired and Axios hagiography.
Evergreen:
