The only way Ron DeSantis prevails

I wonder if Ron DeSantis’s favorite mot these days is from Mark Twain: “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

Maybe so. But let’s face it, the reports are many and deafening. 

They are also damaging. Consider, to take one recent example, the report, conveyed by Semafor, on the DeSantis Meme Team that works under the rubric of “War Room Creative Ideas” on the encrypted message app Signal.  

Among the “creative ideas” were videos, insinuated anonymously onto Twitter (as it then was), that smeared Donald Trump by including a fascist symbol — get it? Another attacked Trump for pro-LGBT rights comments. Both were instantly attacked by the Trump base. 

Semafor obtained and verified the authenticity of screen shots from the DeSantis team discussing their work. “The correspondence,” Semafor notes, “offers a glimpse of a strategy that mixes digital aggression and (unsuccessful) attempts to keep the campaign’s own activities secret. The messages were set to disappear after one week.”

It wasn’t soon enough. The screenshots show “staffers praising a widely-derided and since-deleted video… that included a version of the Sonnenrad, a symbol associated with Nazi Germany.” Kyle Lamb, formerly the campaign’s “director of research and data,” thought it pretty nifty. “This belongs in the Smithsonian,” he purred. That was shortly before he and thirty-seven other staffers were let go in what the media, taking a page from Klaus Schwab, called a campaign “reset.”

The result? A long story at NBC News encapsulates the prevailing public mood. “Beer, barbecue and a bus,” reads its title. “Inside Ron DeSantis’s awkward comeback effort.” 

Uh oh.

DeSantis was in New Hampshire last week to press the flesh and hob nob. The trouble is, there was precious little flesh to press. Barely two dozen people showed up for the announced beer and barbecue, even after the ticket price was sharply cut to attract voters. So far as anyone could see, the Great Reset was “distinctive less for any change in DeSantis’s tack than for the appearance of waning interest in his candidacy.”

I’ve not spoken to anyone in the DeSantis campaign, but were they to ask for my advice, I’d say this:

You should lay off Donald Trump. Your attacks are clumsy, embarrassing and only serve to enflame his base against you. At this point, it looks likely that Trump will be the Republican nominee. That could change in a heartbeat. But for now he is clearly the front-runner and the effort to peel off his voters is doomed to failure. Indeed, it is counterproductive. You should take a page from Johnny Mercer and Accentuate the Positive. Define your platform. Articulate your program. That way, should Trump disappear — overwhelmed by his legal woes, perhaps, or rendered hors de combat by health issues — you will be ready. You are young, successful as a governor and enjoy widespread (though rapidly evaporating) support. There is always 2028 if 2024 doesn’t work out. But you need to husband your strengths, which means not exposing yourself as a target of Trump’s barbs. Ultimately, time is on your side. But your most important virtue at the moment is patience. It’s hard to muster in the midst of a brutal twenty-four-hour news cycle that constantly demands drama, scandal and intrigue. But it is the only way you can ultimately prevail.

That’s the advice I’d give if asked. I offer it for nothing.