Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' planned presidential campaign was upended on Thursday when the Walt Disney Company told top campaign staff that Disney engineers would no longer repair or maintain the candidate's animatronic systems. The move comes after Disney announced the cancellation of a $1 billion planned Orlando development in the midst of a legal feud between the company and the Florida governor's office. The feud began after Florida lawmakers retaliated against Disney, one of the state's top employers, for statements opposing the Republican-backed "Don't Say Gay" legislation DeSantis signed earlier this year.
Disney’s “Imagineering” department, which is responsible for developing and maintaining the special effects and complex moving “animatronics” used in the company’s theme parks, was going to be housed at the planned Florida development known as Lake Nona Town Center.
A company source involved with the decision cited the feud with DeSantis, noting that the cancellation of Imagineering's planned relocation of 1,000 employees from California to Florida would make it difficult for current Orlando-based engineers to provide engineering and repair assistance to the DeSantis campaign. "It's hard enough to stay on top of every animatronic figure in every ride in our Orlando parks," said the source. "The company decided it couldn't afford to keep sending imagineers to repair DeSantis every time his campaign hauls him to Iowa or other key campaign states."
The source noted that DeSantis' recent trip to Europe presented "a nightmare" for engineers tasked with servicing the candidate. "Animatronics are generally designed to be bolted to the ground, using tall boots or other misdirections to hide connecting hoses or electrical connections. Shipping one halfway across the world is an almost sure way to break something."
"Major repairs had to be done after DeSantis came back to Florida," said the source, "but there's not much chance those repairs would hold on the rigors of the campaign trail."
A source within Disney's Imagineering department confirmed the company's concerns, but said a new "major mechanical failure" of DeSantis' systems earlier this week was "the tipping point" in the company deciding they could no longer maintain the DeSantis campaign's featured animatronic device.
"You can see the exact moment the failure took place," said the Imagineering source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the company's engineering designs. "One minute he's talking, the next he's lurching backwards, with the jaw subsystems and one hand failing at the same time."
"This wasn't simply a broken hose, or the two people beside him would have been sprayed with fluid. This was a complete failure of one of the main hydraulic units."
Of particular concern to Disney engineers was the "disastrous" failure of the figure's right hand and arm. "These are very powerful mechanical systems. If anyone had been in the way of that it could have resulted in some very serious injuries." The DeSantis campaign refused to comment, and Disney company sources indicated that campaign had not yet brought their candidate in for repair before Disney executives made the decision to cancel DeSantis campaign maintenance contracts.
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While most of the company's audio-animatronics figures use pneumatic systems for movement, said the source, a mix of pneumatic and hydraulic elements are used in other figures depending on figure size and the range and speed of movement required.
"The DeSantis project, it's all hydraulics,” said the Disney source. “The campaign wanted it to be pneumatic but we just couldn't put as much hot air in that system as the DeSantis campaign insisted on.”
Sources inside the burgeoning DeSantis presidential campaign described top campaign heads as "in a panic" over Disney's termination of maintenance contracts, and that the move is likely to require the cancellation of most upcoming planned DeSantis appearances. Campaign sources scoffed at Disney's suggestion that the candidate was unsafe to operate in its current condition, instead calling Disney's move "another attack on conservative free speech."
Another source inside Disney Imagineering called those claims "ridiculous," and warned that DeSantis systems would only "go from bad to worse" if the candidate was not shut down for overhaul.
"From the look of the video it looks like the hydraulics failure resulted in a cracked cylinder in the hips. DeSantis isn't going to be able to bend from the waist until that's fixed, and this isn't a device that had a lot of leg or torso movement to begin with."
As to whether the DeSantis campaign would be able to find another company to repair DeSantis' damaged system, the source only shrugged. "Disney produces all of the most advanced animatronics in the world, and other companies aren't even close. They're welcome to try Six Flags if they want."
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