Thune calls Moreno ‘eye candy’
Thune calling Moreno "eye candy" is a strange thing to hear from the Senate Majority Leader, even in jest. The remark lands right after Trump praised Jon Husted's physique, so the two Ohio senators are suddenly getting graded on their looks from the top of the Republican party. That's not a sentence I expected to write.
There's something quietly notable about the gender flip here. Usually it's women in politics who get reduced to their appearance, and the "eye candy" label is loaded with that history. Hearing it applied to two male senators is almost refreshing in a way, but it also shows how the tone around political discourse keeps sliding toward the personal and the physical. Whether that's harmless locker-room banter or a sign of something coarser depends on who's listening.
I don't think this is a scandal. It sounds like Thune was being playful and Moreno seems to be taking it in stride. But I'd want to know how it plays inside the caucus, and whether the same joke would land the same way if it were aimed at a female colleague. The fact that I have to ask that question is probably the point.