This is what I call an Aunt Jemima headline, meaning that I only marvel at what took it so long to finally manifest. This topic has been ready to explode for some time now, and is the main reason that so many of the key players on Team DeSantis have been running for the exits in recent weeks. Nobody wanted to be around when this exploded. Associated Press:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis broke campaign finance law by communicating about TV spending decisions with a big-dollar super PAC that is supporting his Republican bid for the White House, a nonpartisan government watchdog group alleged in a complaint filed Monday.
The Campaign Legal Center cited recent reporting by The Associated Press and others in the complaint, which was filed with the Federal Election Commission. It alleges that the degree of coordination and communication between DeSantis’ campaign and Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting him, crossed a legal line set in place when the Supreme Court first opened the door over a decade ago to the unlimited raising and spending such groups are allowed to do.
“When a super PAC like Never Back Down illegally coordinates its election spending with a candidate’s campaign, the super PAC effectively becomes an arm of the campaign,” said Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at Campaign Legal Center. “That circumvents federal contribution limits and reporting requirements, and gives the super PAC’s special interest backers, including corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals, a concerning level of influence over elected officials and policymaking.”
That’s the broad outline of the story. Now Team DeSantis’ response to it will put you on the floor. This is more Trumpian than Trump himself.
In a statement, DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo said the complaint was “baseless,” rooted in “unverified rumors and innuendo,” offering “just another example of how the Left is terrified of Ron DeSantis and will stoop to anything to stop him.”
That’s sheer nonsense. This story has been percolating for months now, precisely because so many of DeSantis’ high profile associates have been jumping ship over this very issue. Nobody wanted to be standing when the music stopped and there was no chair to go to, so all the top people ran, not wanting to be stuck with this.
What’s interesting is that when you read a bit further in the article, DeSantis has felt comfortable skating on this thin ice because he believes that he can run out the clock. The story goes on to say, “Previously, the DeSantis’ campaign strongly denied the governor has tried to influence the network of outside groups supporting him given the federal laws prohibiting coordination,” and also, “Regardless, it’s unlikely that DeSantis will face any potential consequences in the immediate term.” This last comment is what DeSantis is counting on, that this issue is going to take years to adjudicate and so what? He gets what he wants and needs and whatever happens down the road is just that, down the road.
This is the article you need to read. The headline is, “Ron DeSantis wanted to change the way campaigns were funded. Then the fights started.” The sub headline reads, “With just weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, the GOP candidate’s bold strategy is now in tatters and its top architect has resigned.”
The article goes on to describe how DeSantis entered the presidential campaign with his impressive war chest and then Never Back Down formed, the PAC which is under scrutiny here. DeSantis knew that under campaign finance rules his Team DeSantis and Never Back Down could not privately coordinate most of their spending. But, the article goes on, “they aimed to function as an integrated whole — built with the candidate’s approval, advised by a single law firm, overseen by a board that included DeSantis confidants and seeded with $82.5 million that DeSantis had raised for his gubernatorial reelection. It was the first time a major campaign ceded so much of its operations to an entity it could not legally control.”
Simply put, DeSantis decided that he was going to do things his way, his and Casey’s way, and that has never flown. This is why DeSantis has had so much upheaval in his ranks and so many high profile people quitting. The professionals in running political campaigns decided that they needed to distance themselves from this.
With just weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, the experiment is now in tatters. The super PAC that funded almost all of the DeSantis advertising and field programs and much of the candidate’s travel and events has been sidelined by the people that created it.
On Saturday night, about four hours after this story first published online, Jeff Roe — a key architect of Never Back Down’s strategy — joined a string of departures, announcing he was resigning and further deepening the group’s tumult. He said he “cannot in good conscience stay affiliated with Never Back Down” after the super PAC sent statements to The Washington Post suggesting the group fired officials connected to Roe’s firm over “mismanagement and conduct issues.” […]
Five other senior officials have left Never Back Down since late November. Three officials with Roe’s firm were fired, and the board chairman and the founding chief executive both resigned, amid internal concerns about legal compliance. A verbal conflictfrom inside the group’s Atlanta offices became public, as did DeSantis’s own misgivings about the outside group’s leadership. The governor and his campaign staff have been frustrated by reporting on the drama around Never Back Down and critical of the group’s ad strategy, with DeSantis’s second campaign manager, James Uthmeier, publicly instructing donors to give elsewhere for TV ads.
Rather than a new playbook for presidential campaigns, the broader DeSantis project hasexposed the dangers of depending on emerging loopholes in campaign finance law that allow candidates to turn over traditional election efforts to groups that can take donations of any size from corporations or individuals.
“The super PAC model of winning a presidential primary, I think, is staggering, if not on the ropes,” said one DeSantis donor. “And if you’re going to have a successful presidential primary campaign you need to be able to raise hard dollars.”
DeSantis’ campaign is falling down around his ears in shards and tatters. Yet he would have you know that it’s all fine, just fine. It’s just the lefties, scared out of their socks, making up stories because they’re so terrified of Big Ron, despite the fact that he’s running 50 points behind Trump. Lots to be scared of, right?
DeSantis’ entire campaign has been a joke because the candidate himself has been a joke. If this is DeFuture of the GOP, the GOP is even more phuqued than you knew.
And DeSantis may get to the “finish line” of his campaign without being prosecuted by the FEC. That’s very likely. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t going to be a lot of hassle down the road for him, long after he’s out of politics.
DeSantis is like Trump, he’s a short term thinker and he’s fundamentally dishonest. As long as he can cobble together a way to get through the day, sunrise to sunset, like a fruit fly, he thinks he’s doing well. You would think that all the high profile resignations would have been a wake up call, but evidently not.
Let’s see what Trump does with this new development, if anything, and let’s see what happens mid-January in Iowa, the Iowa Caucus, the big basket containing all of DeSantis eggs. The best he can hope for is Ted Cruz 2016: the Sequel, but he doesn’t seem in touch with that reality, either.
Hey Nancy, ‘these go go white boots are made for walking’…it’s better to cut your losses and head back to strip mall and geritol land. Maybe your master will let you eat flies in your cell as Dracula allowed his servant to do. My advice is don’t let your wife near those grubby fingers that grab pussies. He’s bound to humiliate you…one way or the other. Real fascists don’t respect nazi-lite.