Strategist Says DeSantis Memo Leak Is 'The Dumbest Thing I've Seen In A Long Time'
www.huffpost.com
CNN's Paul Begala was baffled by the leak, which contained guidance for the Florida governor's strategy in the GOP presidential debate.
  • SinningStromgald@lemmy.world
    842·
    10 months ago

    This is like instructions on “How to be a human and totally not a robot (PROMISE!)” but for a presidential debate. And shows just how little substance there is to DeSantis besides “woke bad” “gay bad” “trans bad” “SAVE KIDS” “slavery good” “shoot brown people”. Do you think he mumbles these things to himself when he’s masturbating?

  • Bluehood380@lemmy.world
    72·
    10 months ago

    Not a bot:

    CNN commentator and Democratic political strategist Paul Begala was astounded by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ leaked presidential debate advice, calling it “the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a long time.”

    The New York Times on Thursday published documents detailing debate and campaign strategies for the Republican presidential candidate that were posted on the website of Axiom Strategies, a company owned by the chief strategist of DeSantis’ super PAC, Never Back Down.

    After the Times reached out for comment Thursday, one particular memo was removed from the website. Hours later, the other documents were reportedly taken down.

    The memo in question presented four key goals for DeSantis at the debate:

    1. Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times.

    2. State [DeSantis’] positive vision 2-3 times.

    3. Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy in a response.

    4. Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack.

    “Leaking this is like, the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of dumb things,” Begala said of the memo. “If Gov. DeSantis wants to defend Donald Trump, well that is Donald Trump’s job. He has plenty of defenders.”

    Begala added that DeSantis’ team had put the governor in a terrible position ahead of the Aug. 23 debate, “because now, everything he says in the debate, we’re all going to say, ’Oh, that was scripted. That was false.’”

    The other candidates mentioned in the memo, business executive Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, should “send the DeSantis super PAC a fruit basket or something and thank them,” Begala said.

    The memo also directed DeSantis to “Invoke a personal anecdote story about family, kids, Casey, showing emotion,” and suggested specific lines he could use to defend Trump and attack Ramaswamy.

    It was posted among hundreds of other pages of campaign advice, research and polling for the Florida governor’s campaign, according to the Times.

    Trump has indicated he won’t attend next week’s debate hosted by Fox News in Milwaukee. He leads DeSantis, his closest rival in the polls, by nearly 40 points, according to RealClearPolitics.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      12·
      10 months ago

      Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack.

      In what other election have you ever heard of a candidate coming to their opponent’s defense?

      • dynamojoe@lemmy.world
        11·
        10 months ago

        In the short term DeSantis’ goal is to defend Trump because doing otherwise is death. Everyone in the GOP who stands up against Trump gets crushed. DeSantis hopes the GOP primary comes down to him and Trump and then Trump gets sidelined due to legal/personal/financial/health issues.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      13·
      10 months ago

      Another article this morning said Vivek’s numbers are growing. He’s in third place. I don’t think he’ll get anywhere and I know Ronnie is racist, but this is a logical thing to do.

    • Drusas@kbin.social
      10·
      10 months ago

      To be fair, in this case, the brown guy is awful. Not because he’s brown but because of who he is.

      • Fisk400@feddit.nu
        112·
        10 months ago

        It’s a republican debate. They are all awful. It’s a competition among awful people to see who is most liked by a much larger bunch of awful people.

    • RiikkaTheIcePrincess@kbin.social
      3·
      10 months ago

      Seems like a good plan for a party whose entire thing is leading around a bunch of people who just want to inflict pain and misery. Letting them know how easy they are to dupe maybe shakes this up a tiny bit but I wouldn’t put it past that lot to just yell “FAKE NEWS” and eat up the manipulations anyway.

  • OldWoodFrame
    20·
    10 months ago

    To their credit, this “leak” is getting more attention than his actual debate performance probably, this would be pretty good strategy if the debate prep plan didn’t seem so dumb.

    • towerful@programming.dev
      101·
      10 months ago

      Doesn’t matter about the actual plan.
      Leaking this is like “play along at home”.
      “Oh, he said the thing”.

      As it is, any time one of these points come up - whether it’s organically/naturally or not - people will go “well that’s shoe-horned in”.
      If he actually makes a legitimate point, a good argument, whatever… And strays even close to one of these points, it will be disregarded as insincere.

      Even if these were positive things - instead of “disparage opponent, defend criminal” - it wouldn’t matter.
      It’s still gonna be “play along with…”, And that’s all that’s gonna be talked about after the debate.

      I’m pretty sure opponents are going to reference this during the debate, just to twist the knife.