GOP state House Speaker Richard Corcoran

After Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Ron DeSantis in Florida’s Republican gubernatorial primary, there was some speculation that state House Speaker Richard Corcoran might run for attorney general rather than for governor. However, Corcoran's allies are making it very plain that he's not going anywhere. Watchdog PAC, Corcoran's allied political committee, is up with their first TV spot, backed by a $500,000 buy, and let's just say that, as Ed Gillespie did in last year's race for governor in Virginia, they leave subtlety and decency at the door.

Watchdog’s ad features a dramatization of a young woman distractedly walking down a street while a scary-looking bearded man in a hoodie passes by as the narrator proclaims, "A young woman, gunned down by an illegal immigrant who should have been deported but was protected by a sanctuary city." The man then pulls out a gun and executes the woman at point-blank range. Corcoran then appears and says that when he heard the story of Kate Steinle, he thought about his own daughter (also named Kate) "and how this could have happened to any family, anywhere." He then bemoans how "some Tallahassee politicians" want Florida to be a sanctuary state, but insists that will never happen under his watch.

This spot explicitly seizes upon the death of Kate Steinle, who was shot and killed in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant named Jose Ines Garcia Zarate who had been repeatedly deported from the United States. Republicans, especially Trump, have spent years declaring that Steinle's death is exactly what happens when cities like San Francisco refuse to detain undocumented immigrants. Last year, Garcia Zarate was found not guilty of murder after the defense successfully argued that he had only accidently shot the gun and the bullet that struck Steinle had ricocheted, though he was convicted of illegally possessing a firearm. Of course, Trump and his compatriots immediately cried foul and have continued to use Steinle's death as a rallying cry.

Corcoran's spot drew an immediate outcry for being … well, racist. Of course, Corcoran is more than fine with that, and sure enough, prominent Republicans haven't complained one bit. It’s also pretty obvious why Corcoran is authorizing such an extremist message: A recent poll gave him just 2 percent of the vote in the late August primary, so he'll certainly love any chance to go viral, no matter how scurrilous his message. A bill that Corcoran has been pushing to outlaw sanctuary cities recently passed the state House, even though its sponsor, state Rep. Larry Metz, couldn't name a single city in Florida that would qualify as such. However, the legislation is now stalled in the Senate.