Let’s start with Gov. DeSantis.

Media activist Frances Robles wrote a piece in which she attempted to paint the governor as a racist who supposedly tried to justify slavery when he was teaching high school in the early 2000s. In fact, the alleged reporter spoke to folks who knew him when he was a younger man in order to find any dirt that might be useful in a political attack.

The author noted that he was a respected baseball and football coach at Darlington School in Georgia, but was “remembered by some former students as cocky and arrogant.” He allegedly “publicly embarrassed a student with a prank” and gave questionable teachings about the causes of the Civil War.

Danielle Pompey, one of his students, accused DeSantis of racist behavior. The student, who is black, said he was “mean to me and hostile toward” her. “Not aggressively, but passively, because I was Black.”

Pompey also claimed he taught about the Civil War in a way that made it seem he was trying to justify slavery. 

“Like in history class, he was trying to play devil’s advocate that the South had good reason to fight that war, to kill other people, over owning people — Black people,” she recalled. “He was trying to say, ‘It’s not OK to own people, but they had property, businesses.’”

Of course, she didn’t provide any examples of DeSantis being racist towards her or anyone else. Apparently, The New York Times just took her word for it because of course they did. Moreover, it isn’t even clear what exactly he said that supposedly justified slavery in the South.

Matthew Arne, another former student, lambasted DeSantis for espousing pro-life views. This “troubled” him when his girlfriend, who had taken the governor’s history class, told Arne what he said. 

“Mr. DeSantis was kind of a smug guy,” Arne said, recounting that “students were well aware that he had just graduated from Yale.”

“It was like a, ‘I’m kind of better than you,’” he said. “And we were all just kids.”

To be fair, the author also talked to people who remember DeSantis favorably. But it is worth noting that the racial and slavery angle was designed to be the focus of the piece.

But let’s move on to the lovely Kari Lake, shall we?

Author Jazmine Ulloa wrote a piece about Lake’s past political beliefs and media career. One of her former co-workers in the news industry indicated that the candidate “detested guns and practiced Buddhism.” A former close friend said Lake was “a free spirit” and “liberal to the core.”

“Her saying that abortion should be illegal — absolutely not,” she said. “The Kari I knew would never have said that, and she wouldn’t have believed it either.”

This is somehow supposed to give the impression that Lake is not who she claims to be. The author wrote:

But in her run for governor of Arizona, Ms. Lake — a former local Fox News anchor — has refashioned herself as a protégé of Donald Trump and a die-hard Christian conservative who wields her media expertise as a weapon and has turned her former industry into a foil. In her closing pitch to voters ahead of the election on Tuesday, Ms. Lake, 53, has been campaigning against the press as much as she has against Katie Hobbs, her Democratic rival, riling up audiences against reporters in attendance, whom she calls the “fake news,” and pledging to become the media’s “worst nightmare” if elected.

It’s a far cry from the person many journalists she worked with remember.

Seven of the candidate’s former colleagues at the local Fox outlet in Phoenix all told The Times that Lake “had once expressed more liberal views on subjects including guns, drag queens and undocumented immigrants“ and “used to admire Barack and Michelle Obama,” even donating to the former president’s campaign. Of course, these individuals chose to remain anonymous.

Now, Lake is adamantly pro-life, pro-gun, and about as pugilistic with the media as DeSantis and former President Donald Trump. Even further, she has the gall to question the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, which has enraged folks on the left. 

But it’s quite obvious why the Gray Lady would publish two hit pieces on popular gubernatorial candidates just days before the midterm elections, right? According to the most recent RealClearPolitics average, Lake leads her opponent by 1.8 points. DeSantis is trouncing Charlie Crist by 11.5 points. There is a very good chance both Republican candidates will be governor of their respective states next year. This is not the outcome the folks at The New York Times want to see happen. Unfortunately for them, these desperate attacks will likely be all for naught.