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Former Republican Strategist Thinks DeSantis Is Going To Run Like Michael Dukakis. [1]
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Date: 2022-11-27
Whatever you might think of former Republican political consultant Stuart Stevens, I’ve been intrigued by some of his insights he has provided about how Republicans function and behave. And I knew he was not a Ron DeSantis fan. Stevens has stated before that Ron DeSantis will not survive the upcoming abuse that Donald Trump will bring down on his head, but he has not gone in depth into what it will be like, until now. Stevens has seen the future, and he flat out says that DeSantis has ressurrected an old, failed campaign strategy: The Michael Dukakis Campaign of 1988.
And Lord Almighty does that bring back some extremely painful memories for me.
Anyway, here are some gems about that strategy from Stevens:
Not satisfied with the obvious Dukakis-in-the-tank comparisons sparked by DeSantis’ “Top Gov” campaign ad, it’s as though the DeSantis brain trust closely studied past presidential campaigns and picked the Dukakis campaign as their model. Dukakis posed in a tank wearing a helmet. DeSantis posed in a fighter jet in a helmet. The most obvious difference was that the helmet seemed to wear Dukakis while it’s possible the jaws-of-life were used to free DeSantis’ ample head from his. Michael Dukakis had no answer to the most obvious question of what he would do if his wife were a victim of violent crime. Ron DeSantis had no answer to the most obvious question posed by Charlie Crist: would he commit to serving a four year term, if reelected, or was he already running for president? Michael Dukakis invited America to look closely at Massachusetts to appreciate the genius of his leadership. Ron DeSantis has decided to do the same.
It’s a great approach, except for everything that’s wrong with it, which is everything that’s going wrong in Florida. Why is this happening? How could a campaign make such obvious unforced errors?
The answer is simple: arrogance.
And it is not like there are no problems in Florida, but I will say that DeSantis has been good at covering up little problems like Florida having some of the highest COVID-19 deaths per capita in the U.S. It does help that the Media is complicit with covering this failure up because they still view a viral pandemic as a POLITICAL PROBLEM instead of a HEALTH CRISIS!
Viruses do not care what political party you belong to, but I digress.
Anyway, Stevens says that DeSantis is surrouned by sycophants who cannot the tell him when he is fucking up. DeSantis is running ads about how great things are in Florida since he has been governor, and DeSantis and his staff believe they can take the Florida model and impose it on the rest of America. And Dukakis believed the same thing with MA and the “Massachusetts Miracle.”
And George H.W. Bush was delighted to attack the environmental record of Dukakis with how bad Boston Harbor was. Also, let’s not forget about that furlough from prison system in MA. It was a twofer for the Bush team. Show how fucked up it was to let a dangerous criminal have a prison furlough, and to pull in the racist vote, the star attraction was black criminal Willie Horton who raped a white woman.
Sorry, I’m having flashbacks to the Dukakis campaign’s non-response and bungling to Bush’s attacks.
But unlike Dukakis who was a nice guy and got pummeled by a cynical Bush campaign, DeSantis is an arrogant, ugly, little man:
This is a man so lacking in character, he made a commercial featuring his toddler building a border wall with toy blocks. This is a man so lacking in character he yelled at teenagers on stage for wearing masks during a pandemic, as they had been instructed to do so by the event organizers. This is a man so lacking in character he used state funds to mislead legal asylum seekers in Texas into believing relocating would mean greater opportunity and security, just so he could “own the libs” by flying them to Massachusetts, leaving them with nothing. Think about the depravity that went into that decision: “What can we do to prove we are more cruel than Donald Trump? What about kidnapping some vulnerable men, women and children whose only sin is that they still believed in an America that Ron DeSantis has abandoned, if he ever did believe?”
And seeing as cruelty is a feature and not a bug of modern Republicanism, does DeSantis believe he will be immune when Trump spews forth his lies and cruelty? Stevens gives us a preview of upcoming attractions:
It will be grimly amusing to watch the deconstruction of DeSantis should he actually summon the gumption to challenge Trump. It is one thing to bully teenagers and traumatized asylum seekers but another to challenge a cornered psychopath like Trump. “You don’t really think his wife had breast cancer, do you?” asked an operative from my Republican days who is still deep down the Trump well, “Did she ever lose her hair? Give me a break, this was all bullshit for DeSantis to try and make himself look a little human.” That is where Donald Trump will take this race and enjoy every minute of it.
How many people know that Ron DeSantis, who routinely accuses teachers of perverting their pupils, was a high school teacher at a ritzy Atlanta prep School? How hard is it to imagine Donald Trump taunting DeSantis: “A lot of people are talking about what happened with DeSantis and his students. He only taught one year and after he left, Georgia passed a law requiring schools to report teachers who abuse students. You think that’s a coincidence?”
Yes, I can see it getting extremely nasty. And DeSantis will not be running against hapless Florida Democrats. He will have to face the worst of his own fascist party. And up to this date, no one has really challenged Donald Trump, at least not a frontal challenge.
No Republican has drawn blood from Trump, except for outgoing Liz Cheney. And look at what happened to her. The MAGA maniacs in WY dumped her in the primary.
As for DeSantis, his other political strategy is to ignore Trump and “govern”
Dukakis did that with George H.W. Bush, and Bush pounded on him. Dukakis actually believed that the American voter would see through the bullshit and lies of Bush. He had an unrealistic view of the so called common sense Americans. Surely no one would ever believe those campaign lies! Why dignify the attacks with a response?
I’m with Stuart Stevens that DeSantis has a glass jaw. I do not expect DeSantis to win the nomination, but if he does, it will only be because Trump imploded in some fashion. And people have been hoping for that for 7 years now. But if Trump is not the nominee, it’s safe to assume he will act as a spoiler and do everything within his remaing power to burn down the Republican Party.
And it couldn’t happen to a nicer fascist than Ron DeSantis.
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