Governor Ron DeSantis Speaks — Courtesy: Shutterstock — Hunter Crenian
The start of Ron DeSantis’ campaign has flopped just like one of Elon Musk’s earlier rocket designs.
The governor of Florida has been planning to run for president for months, but his official campaign launch committed a grave political error by giving his rivals, particularly ex-President Donald Trump, a chance to make fun of him.
First, DeSantis made the unconventional decision to officially announce his long-awaited run for office on a Twitter Spaces audio stream alongside Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform, rather than in front of regular voters. As a result, the biggest moment in his political career was narrated by an inaudible voice.
Even worse, there were problems and delays with the launch interview. The adage that a presidential candidate’s announcement day is the greatest day of the campaign will not apply to DeSantis since his own message was muffled. Even when the event began, it had a more Musk-centric vibe because a number of conservative thought leaders called in to support DeSantis but appeared more gushing about his host.
According to Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration communications director, “it came across like he was a talk radio host, not the future leader of the free world.”
DeSantis will need to run an almost flawless campaign if he wants to defeat Trump, who virtually doubled him up 53 percent to 26 percent in a new CNN survey of the GOP race released on Wednesday. Since his fundamental message was that he had the kind of discipline and attention that could make his presidency significantly more successful than Trump’s term, his halting debut was hardly a promising one.
The loyalists of the former president, who launched vicious weeks-long attacks against the former Trump protégé, whom he obviously believes to be his largest primary threat, could not contain their pleasure at the debacle that overshadowed DeSantis’ big moment.
“Ron DeSantis’ fumbled campaign announcement is yet another illustration of the fact that he is unfit for the position. The fight to save America is too important, and the stakes are too high, to take a chance on a rookie who is obviously not ready for the big time, according to Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump-aligned Make America Great Again PAC.
Even the campaign for President Joe Biden joined in, posting a link to his fundraising platform that, it said, worked—unlike the DeSantis audio stream.
DeSantis released a video boasting that he “broke the internet” since so many people tuned in to hear him on Twitter Spaces in an effort to deflect attention from the mishap.
DeSantis made a serious mistake by giving a ruthless opponent like Trump an early gift, which the great showman will undoubtedly recount in increasingly demeaning and humiliating ways at his upcoming campaign rallies. This mistake is all the more surprising given that his staff had months to plan his first official move on the national stage. He is now under immediate pressure to alter the storyline to avoid having Wednesday’s tumultuous events serve as a metaphor for his campaign.
Even before it was made public, his shadow campaign had started to lose steam in recent weeks due to Trump’s comeback, several peculiar occurrences while DeSantis was overseas, and his inability to dissuade other contenders from entering what is now a crowded primary field. Candidates who are polling in the single digits, like former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, may now feel that DeSantis is on an unstoppable downward trend as a result of his stumbling start.
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Born and raised in South Florida, Krystal is a recent graduate from the University of Miami with professional writing experience at the collegiate and national news outlet levels. She’s a foodie who loves all things travel, the beach, & visiting new places throughout Florida.