The Dismal Decline of DeSantis

Few in political history have fallen so far so fast.

I’ve been around politics since my first vote for Richard Nixon in 1968. I’ve seen quite a few politicians—-the “next big thing”—-burn out, blow up, or self-immolate before they even got started. Gary (Hart)Pence comes to mind, who’s appearance with a scantily clad hottie on the aptly named Monkey Business sank him like one of Admiral Yamamoto’s carriers at Midway.

Then there were three notable Republican NBTs, beginning with Senator Phil Gramm in the 1990s. He had money. Lots of money. He had a good personality for a senator. But he was a one-note-policy-samba, and he collapsed faster than “Indiana Jones and the Prunes of Power.” In the early 2000s, financial genius Steve Forbes tried his hand, only for people to learn that a) he was nerdy, and b) he really didn’t have any ideas beyond tax cuts. Then came Mr. Law and Order, Fred Thompson, who had acquitted himself well in televised congressional hearings. He appeared to be the wise grandfather, until his public appearances revealed him to be less engaging the the director’s cut of “The Best of Yoko Ono.”

What Forbes and Gramm at least had in common was money, and lots of it. They were by far the best-financed early candidates, and it didn’t matter.

Which brings us to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. On the surface he seemed to have a lot going for him. He was running one of our biggest states well; had (it seemed) defeated Disney in a war over wokism, and, gee, even though he “wasn’t running,” had amassed $20 million in a campaign war chest.

Then the roof caved in. Let’s admit that challenging the former President who is now running almost as an incumbent is suicide even in Swahili. Let’s admit that the strategy necessary to do so under any circumstances is extremely tricky. After all, you have to criticize a party favorite, a man who achieved large swaths of what the party wanted to see happen, and whose loss was almost certainly due to vote fraud. All of these factors alone should have dissuaded anyone from running against Donald Trump. But recently even his critics have finally admitted that he is a pretty good natural politician.

DeSantis’s challenge, then, was to somehow criticize Trump’s performance and at the same time show how he would do things better. That left him with only two real options: separate himself on the China Virus policies (because Florida lifted lockdown restrictions early, though was not first by any means) and second, claim that DeSantis could make better personnel choices.

Neither of these was feasible. First, even though many utterly hate the vax and vax mandates—-and I never took the vax—-it is foolish to think people as a whole didn’t respond to it. Some 82% of Americans got at least one vax, well over half got two. Even if you account for the number of people who likely suffered some vax-related side effect, the “pro-vax” number is going to be well over 60% or more. In other words, except for a small, vocal (and right) minority, this was a losing issue for DeSantis.

As for personnel choices, the DeSantis campaign itself, not his Florida appointees, started to reflect problems in that area as well. His campaign management who designed the entire strategy was exposed as incompetent, deviously nasty, or both. For example, DeSantis had to start his campaign with a massive lie—-that he “hadn’t decided” whether or not to run. This was so patently false that people just ignored it. “Of course he’s running,” they said. “Why is he doing a world tour and a book release if he’s not running?” Thus the campaign right off the bad was cloaked in dishonesty and at the same time, weakness, for someone who isn’t a candidate will not generate large crowds necessary to show momentum. Astroturfed crowds configured around his book release simply didn’t measure up. (His appearance at the Reagan Library had a few hundred people; Trump’s near simultaneous rally had over 10,000).

Second, his incompetent campaign advisers could not craft issues that separated him from Trump without making him look disloyal. Which he was. Having two legs of your starting campaign consist of dishonesty and disloyalty is not a recipe for victory.

But the third failure of his outrageously stupid staff was to hire a bunch of low-rent, inept “social media influencers” to do nothing but attack MAGA/Trumpers on Twitter, Truth, and other sites. This not only turned fence sitters against DeSantis but hardened the already solid Trump base.

The fact that these people were incompetent and often nasty totally eroded perception of DeSantis that he would “make better personnel choices than Trump. Even more troubling were the reports that DeSantis had burned through a sizeable portion of his campaign money—-which came almost entirely from large donors. Those donors were maxxed out at $2000 each. (Trump’s money came from small donors under $35.00).

This meant that DeSantis was driven to campaign on two other main themes, the “weaponization” of the justice system and the war in Ukraine. These were not good issues for him. With the “weaponization” claims, DeSantis had to somehow stay away from the main fact that the target of almost all the “weaponization” was one man, Donald Trump. It would be like railing against the persecution of Christians while ignoring the crucifixion of Jesus (and no, I am not comparing Trump to Jesus. It shouldn’t have to be said. But this IS a metaphor). Until or unless someone else is attacked at the same rate and at the same level as President Trump has been, this radically narrow attack fails. But once DeSantis admits it’s all about Trump, he makes Trump’s point: they are only after him.

As for the war in Ukraine, DeSantis has been on all sides of this, stating it wasn’t our concern, then quickly flip flopping to saying it was an important issue, then modifying his position again. None of these positions are winning him trust with populists who make up the majority of Republicans now.

And all this explains the polls, where in the last several, DeSantis has been below 20, and as low as 12. In state polling in South Carolina and Iowa, DeSantis comes in third, behind Nick Knack Haley in SC and behind Tim “Bankster” Scott in IA. Worse for DeSantis, he is increasingly nearing single digits and has been tied by Vivek Ramaswamy, an unknown for all intents and purposes.

Personally, I think his “rebooted” campaign is dead. As I said in March, it was dead then for the reasons outlined above. I will not be surprised if he is completely out of the race before a single primary takes place.

Larry Schweikart

Rock drummer, Film maker, NYTimes #1 bestselling author

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