You remember the Peter Principle, where somebody rises to their level of incompetence and stays there. Maybe we could have the DeSantis Dictate, where a person rises to the level of his or her charm and then plummets like a rock. DeSantis should have quit while he was ahead. When nobody outside of Florida had really seen him or listened to him, he seemed to be what he said he was, which was a successor of sorts to Donald Trump. Now, by running against Trump, and openly campaigning, he’s not perceived as the Smart Trump, which is what he had his sights set on. No, he’s the clumsy, charmless, classless Trump. And considering that Trump’s a rapist, in addition to his “grab ’em by the …..” remarks, that says a lot.
Presidential Charm for Dummies: The DeSantis Method™ pic.twitter.com/MHLdSScPuW
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) August 11, 2023
DeSantis fired his campaign manager, Generra Peck, on Tuesday. I think she was the one who was in charge when all the money was being squandered early on. Well, okay, Casey’s in charge, but you know she’s not going to get fired, right? Here are details of the campaign “reset” if you care to read.
The fascination that the DeSantis campaign holds for me is that it’s like watching both Ted Cruz and Scott Walker self-immolate, except much stranger.
Rick Wilson’s been chronicling this, and he and Tara Setmeyer talk about an “it” factor. True enough. Even Dubya had “it” more than DeSantis.
DeSantis has fired his campaign manager. He is getting closer to the cause of his real problem.
— Deacon Blues (@DeaconBlues0) August 12, 2023
Presidential campaigns come and go but mark my words: the DeSantis campaign will be talked about for many years to come.
Ron has the ‘it’ factor.
No, not that ‘it’ factor.
He has one like in the movie ‘It’.
Creepy, scary, horrifying, and yet funny/weird at the same time. A demented clown in the wrong dimension.
See, even his ‘it’ factor is wrong.
As I recall, the appeal of “W” was “He’s a guy you’d enjoy having a beer with.” They actually marketed that. Truth be told when he was running the Texas Rangers baseball team he was in fact a fun guy to have show up in the stands and watch an inning or two with the fans. Then move on to another section. If only he’d stayed in that job! But the point is that I think he really did enjoy doing that, which is how he was able to “sell” it in a Presidential campaign.
Bush, the guy you’d like to have a beer with.
DeSantis on the other hand is a nasty load of foul smelling excrement you’re glad to flush down the toilet!
Yeah, that “Bush, the guy you’d like to have a beer with” was a real winning slogan–considering Bush was a recovering alcoholic. I mean, there are cooks who will not even use alcohol during cooking if they know one of the people eating their meals are recovering alcoholics (even though the amount of alcohol getting through any aspect of cooking is so negligible that it couldn’t get a mosquito drunk much less a full-grown human).
But, sure. Use a slogan that you couldn’t possibly put into actual effect without running the risk that your candidate “goes wild” and suffers a relapse. (I know–many recovering alcoholics *can* have a single beer or glass of wine without relapsing into their bad behavior but most never even consider putting that to a test, just in case; of course, it was never a *single* beer or glass of wine that caused the alcoholism in the first place–it was indulging in far too many over a period of time that caused the alcoholism.)
I’m aware, and was even then award he was in recovery. He didn’t make huge deal talking up his overcoming alcohol/addiction but he was open that it was the prospect of losing wife & family that made him take a hard look at himself and deal with his problem. That he managed to get and stay clean is one of the few things I could admire about him. I’ll give credit where it’s due even to those I can’t stand. At the same time, the “selling point” was a good one for a lot of folks and he never objected to his people playing it up, or qualifying it with the “if he still drank beer.” Why clutter things up? Too many voters don’t make an effort to go beyond the superficial and nuance is lost on them.
Interesting. Bush really struck me as the perfect example of a ‘dry drunk’.
I had to check how DeSantis could possibly have won his first race for Governor, given how badly he seems to be on the campaign trail. In 2022, he won by simple process of elimination–no one else qualified to challenge him in the primary so he won the general election by simple virtue of the “R.” (It seems there were nearly a half million fewer votes cast in the general election in 2022 compared to 2018 but–somehow–DeSantis managed to get more than 600,000 *MORE* votes in 2022 than he got in 2018 while Democrat Charlie Crist actually lost some 900,000 votes compared to 2018.) But HOW did DeSantis win in 2016? He actually managed to get 56.5% of the GOP primary vote. His main opponent, Adam Putnam (who’d actually been working IN Florida at the time as the state’s Commissioner of Agriculture), had been the front runner and had a boatload of endorsements. But, it seems that Trump’s stubby little thumb helped DeSantis pull off the primary win as Trump was DeSantis’s most prominent endorsement.
But, if he was as bad a campaigner in Florida in 2018, I just don’t see how he managed to pull off the primary win, even with a Trump endorsement. (I mean, even on “King of the Hill,” Hank was an ardent fan of George W Bush during the 2000 campaign until he actually had the chance to meet his “hero” and discovered Mr Bush’s handshake was unimpressive: “Oh my God! His handshake, it was limp!” This was later followed by an observation that “nutjob Third World dictators [will be] walking all over us when they find out the man in charge doesn’t have a strong enough finger to push the button.”)
A huge factor which our side all the way up to the DNC refused (and still seems to) acknowledge is that the state level Democratic Party leadership and structure down to the county level was (and is) for sh*t. Either they cooperate with the GOP in exchange for some measly table scraps (or just got bought off) or ran out of f**ks to give. Or both. The bottom line is that in what was if not a swing state one that could break our way sometimes if cirumstances were right has been abandoned by the Democratic Party. Kind of a “it’s just too HARD now to bother” mentality. So, if the leaders from the state organization down to those at the county (and even precinct level) can’t be bothered why should voters bother? It pi$$es me off that the DNC hasn’t been publicly raising hell and cleaning house down in that state to energize Democrats. Given what DeSantis has been doing in and to that state we have a golden opportunity and despite next year being so crucial are just pi$$ing away a huge bloc of electoral votes. And a chance to restore some balance to politics in a major state.
The open secret to GOP ‘wins’in Florida is the discovery of being able to ‘hold’ the states majority of dem voter ballots from Broward at the opalocka sorting facility in Miami Dade until AFTER election deadlines. After Bill Nelson attempted to sue (which I think was the 2nd or 3rd time the GOP actually won by using this trick) the DNC would go to opalocka every night and pick up ballots in an attempt to thwart this tactic. But postal workers still released photos of huge carts of ballots ‘lost’ at Opalocka. (this is an actual thing…I think it’s where Trumps story of ‘suitcases’ of ballots being introduced in Atlanta came from-its the reverse of what he would have known is done in Florida.). I’m certain this is part of Deathsantis’ getting MORE votes despite the fact he killed 60k of his constituents via his ‘great’ COVID handling. ‘Great’ being having twice as many deaths per capita than California. Sounds like negligent manslaughter to me but Florida is THE most blatantly corrupt state in the US by leaps and bounds. Like it’s flabbergasting How BLATANT corruption is.