In one of the many memorable scenes from “The Godfather,” the crime family realizes that one of their men has turned traitor.
Two other mobsters have the traitor, Paulie Gatto, drive them around New York City on business, and during a roadside pit stop in a rural area, when the capo gets out of the car, the camera — from a great distance, with the Statue of Liberty even further in the background — shows the man in the back seat slowly raise a pistol to shoot and kill Paulie.
What’s memorable is the cold-blooded reaction of the capo when he returns to the car.
“Leave the gun,” he instructs the shooter. “Take the cannoli,” the Sicilian pastry they bought earlier.
George Will, a columnist for The Washington Post, cited “The Godfather” in a recent column in which he questioned the wisdom of presidential candidates who use violent phrases to describe their plans if elected.
Will particularly points a critical finger at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who several times has proclaimed that as president, he would “start slitting throats on Day One.”
DeSantis meant that he would start eliminating “deep state” government jobs. In the past, the governor also has used the word “kneecapping” in many ways, both to brag about the power of his office to control others and to complain about legal limits for activities that he supports.
In his column Will muses, “If DeSantis wonders why polls show that he has regressed in his costly competition with Donald Trump, he might rethink his evident decision to leapfrog the former president on the spectrum of loutishness. What comes after the promise of throat-slitting? A Corleone-style vow to put the severed heads of horses in the beds of the woke?”
Will is correct. Throat slitting and kneecapping will work in a Mafia movie, but saying things like that as a president, or as a candidate, is decidedly un-presidential.
“Try to name a president who talked that way,” Will added. Maybe, he says, Richard Nixon on the Watergate tapes. But really, Donald Trump is the only president in modern times who relished the use of tough language.
All this is relevant, Will wrote, because of the Electoral College’s math. CNN reports that 40 of the 50 states have voted for the same party’s presidential nominee in at least the last four elections. That means from the start, not many states will be up for grabs in 2024.
The well-regarded Cook Political Report rates just four states, with a total of 56 electoral votes, as toss-ups next year: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If this is accurate, it means that a few thousand persuadable voters in these four states, and maybe a couple of others, will decide the election.
Will’s wise advice: “The moderate voters who decide our elections will flinch from candidates who talk as though they come from a milieu in which people say things like: ‘Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.’ ” DeSantis should listen.
Jack Ryan, Enterprise-Journal
