The DeSantis Campaign Has a Ron Problem
It has dawned on the Republican donor class that they have bought a dead parrot.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a44666297/ron-desantis-rfk-cdc/
Published: Jul 27, 2023
A now-played-out rom-com cliche is when one woman tells another, "Girlfriend, it's your boyfriend." The banjaxed campaign to make Ron DeSantis into the President of the United States has a similar problem.
Campaign, it's your candidate.
That is the obvious, insoluble problem with the whole enterprise. Ron DeSantis is a wooden, inflexible meathead who tromps on his own dick like he's trying to make dick wine out of it. He's tried to go around Trump to the right and he's fallen repeatedly on his face. It has dawned on the Republican donor class that they have bought a dead parrot. Vivek Ramaswamy is creeping up in the polls. And the former president* is leading all the contenders despite the fact that he's cracking up on social media between federal indictments. In the middle of this political morass, DeSantis is sinking like a stone. And what is strategic reboot from whoever it is that's left at the top of the campaign? You won't believe it.
From Politico:
Among the changes being made were to “expose” voters to DeSantis more, said Nick Iarossi, a Florida-based lobbyist and fundraiser who was at the event. “Let Ron be Ron,” added Iarossi. “That’s what got him here. That’s what made him the leader that he is in Florida. We’re going back to our basics on all of this.”
Let Ron Be Ron.
You have to be kidding. For all his fatal flaws, Ron DeSantis has been as utterly without artifice. First of all, he can't carry it off. He's neither smart nor flexible enough. He has been what he's always been—a jumped-up lucky boy who did two terms in the House that he spent as one of the former president*'s troupe of performing poodles. He barely fell across the finish line to beat Andrew Gillum in his first gubernatorial run. Through it all, he has been the wooden, bizarrely anomic human facsimile that he's been on the campaign trail this year. You might as well let Ron be Ron because he doesn't have the talent to be anyone else.....................................
