When it comes to picking the Top 10 fuckups of the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign — one that POLITICO called "the worst campaign in history" — there's such an embarrassment of riches that it's difficult to narrow the field.
In the benighted 242 days of the clown car parade that passed as his campaign, I figure that there were, on average, at least two significant failures every day, which gives me almost 500 shit-the-bed moments from which I can choose. Nevertheless, here goes:
— Before the beginning: The first rule of everything is to wisely choose your beginnings. You can forgive Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio for underestimating Donald Trump as a Primary opponent because nobody had ever run against Trump. But, can you forgive DeSantis and his coterie of yes-people the arrogance it must have required to assume they could easily topple the Mad Orange King? Why would MAGA cultists buy tickets for the lame tribute band when they can still go see the original Stones?
— Also before the beginning: One of the grandest errors occurred years before the official presidential campaign kickoff. In a classic internecine territorial doowop following DeSantis' first successful gubernatorial campaign, someone high up in DeSantisyland (the rumor is that it was Casey) decided to jettison the winning architect of the campaign, Susie Wiles. In a Shakespearean twist that we can all relish, Susie ended up running Trump's current campaign, and she is doing it masterfully. Imagine if Ron still had Susie on his side rather than on the other side of No Man's Land lobbing mortar rounds with deadly precision into his shell-shocked group of raw conscripts.
— The beginning: Who decided that an X née Twitter rollout made any fucking sense? Setting aside the laugh-out-loud glitchiness of the effort, how does bullshitting with two billionaire tech bros on what sounded like the world's most boring podcast stack up against going back to your Little League baseball stadium in Dunedin and talking about your humble origins before a crowd of thousands of roaring fans? The one day in the campaign where you control the message is the rollout, and they completely blew it.
— Alienating the big money guys: Since when do Republicans threaten the fundamental principles of free-market capitalism more than the Democrats? Since DeSantis, that's when. I'm still gobsmacked that he decided it would be smart to punish one of the most loved global brands, Disney, which also happens to be one of the top employers in Florida. Their crime? Questioning the merits of a piece of legislation championed by DeSantis. This sends a signal to every for-profit company in America that on Ron's watch, Florida operates like a Third-World fascist regime that is willing to use the frightening power of the state to silence any critic. Add to this his singular focus on culture war issues on the stump and you have a candidate broadcasting the skeeviest vibe possible to a corporate America that admires stability and maturity.
— Running a campaign with rookies: A presidential campaign is usually staffed by people who have actually had experience running a presidential campaign. A strange thought, I know. A presidential campaign is an immensely complex undertaking, as it requires talent that can run an organization unlike any other; essentially a pop-up army that has been field-tested and can juggle the enormous complexity and demands of a nationwide, intense battle. DeSantis had none of this. At the top, by the third or so iteration of his staffing model, he was surrounded by a small circle of sycophants who were better at assuaging his ego than speaking truth to power. It was as if NASA decided to use the high school rocketry club to handle the next major launch to the International Space Station. And, just as predictably, it explains why the rocket exploded on the pad.
— Christina Pushaw: What can you say about a communications point person who elevated intensely personal attacks and hate speech to an art form in a national campaign, albeit a sickeningly warped one? If you're DeSantis, you don't say much. You just allow her to be a toxic human geyser spewing the least professional, most corrosive (and sometimes blatantly antisemitic) messaging ever disseminated by a presidential campaign. She managed to alienate the big money guys, the mainstream media and the talking heads (like me, whom she branded a pedophile) while pandering to a tiny sliver of misanthropes camped on the farthest shores of politics; the incels, White supremacists and crazy old guys who still worry about Sharia law. She may be awful, but the fact that she was allowed to be awful falls at the feet of one person: DeSantis.
— Fighting the last war: There's an old adage that to their detriment generals are always fighting the last war. Whatever tactics proved useful in the past conflict become doctrine, and doctrine is applied in the next war. DeSantis and his yes-people fell into this trap. At a time when the nation is focused on the economy and foreign threats, Ron wanted to talk about COVID-19 and Anthony Fauci (up to and including his farewell speech yesterday). The pandemic is over, Ron. Let it go.
— PJs: What can I say? The DeSantises developed a taste for the imperial trappings of office, and even as the campaign peasants were scrounging for kernels of grain they continued to insist on private jets and white glove treatment. Perhaps the single most shocking statistic of the campaign was that it spent more on private jets than TV advertising. This speaks to an enormous sense of entitlement and an almost pathological detachment from reality.
— Ron, the more we saw you the less we liked you: Although the campaign is now floating the false narrative that if only Ron had gotten earlier mainstream media exposure he would have somehow defeated Trump, the reality is that all the facts point in the opposite direction. DeSantis was most popular when he was least known at the national level, and every cringeworthy moment when he actually tried to bond with early-state Primary voters further pushed him down in the polls. Go ask that pudgy Icee-drinking kid whether getting to know DeSantis was the high point of his life. The nation saw a joyless, thin-skinned autocrat who loved nothing better than burning books and marginalizing minorities. They voted accordingly.
— The end: If you're going to suspend your candidacy, don't paint yourself as a Winston Churchill using a quote that was falsely attributed to Churchill. Welcome back to the Free State of Florida, Ron. Now, please fix my home insurance.
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