Ron DeSantis' slow motion collapse continues

Hard to watch.

(Ruh Roh Ron)

On Tuesday, Ron DeSantis removed campaign manager, Generra Peck, the latest in a series of attempts to change the narrative around his flailing presidential bid.

The Messenger, which broke the news, reported it this way:

In his third staff shakeup in less than a month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis replaced his embattled presidential campaign manager with one of his most trusted, and most conservative, advisers: his gubernatorial office’s chief of staff, James Uthmeier.

It’s been a long time coming.

The first mention of a DeSantis reboot in the press came July 15 when NBC News reported that “Ron DeSantis fires roughly a dozen staffers in a campaign shake-up.”

That was 24(!) days ago.

At the time, DeSantis’ team insisted:

1. The dozen or so cuts were the extent of the changes

2. Peck still had the full trust of both DeSantis and his wife, Casey, and would remain on as campaign manager.

Ten days after the initial report, DeSantis’ campaign fired roughly a third of its staff — an acknowledgment that the effort had been badly bloated and was spending massive amounts of money.

At that time, Peck put out a statement assuring everyone that all was fine.

"Following a top-to-bottom review of our organization, we have taken additional, aggressive steps to streamline operations and put Ron DeSantis in the strongest position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden,” she said. “DeSantis is going to lead the Great American Comeback and we're ready to hit the ground running as we head into an important month of the campaign.”

Except the candidate didn’t hit the ground running. He continued to struggle with unforced errors — his assertion that slavery wasn’t all bad because slaves learned skills they used once they were free being the worst of it.

Crowd sizes dwindled. Poll numbers worsened. And Peck — who had the total confidence of the candidate just days ago — was gone.

Now, technically, Peck was moved to a senior strategist role in the campaign. But, don’t be fooled. You don’t get fired as campaign manager and moved into a more prominent role. She may still technically work for DeSantis but it’s in name only.

This all reeks of a) desperation and b) a campaign that doesn’t know what it’s doing.

This quote to Politico is illustrative of the second point:

“One person close to the campaign, who was granted anonymity to freely discuss the issue, said that Peck’s removal, which was first reported by The Messenger, was ‘no surprise. Should have happened a few weeks ago.’”

Yes! Good point. Why did the campaign wait almost a month from the start of its reboot to get rid of the campaign manager? If Peck built the structure — and the structure wasn’t working — then the best way to send a message that there’s a new sheriff in charge is to, well, PUT a new sheriff in charge.

It’s why baseball managers get fired in the middle of the season when the team isn’t performing. It may not be entirely (or even mostly) their fault but a message has to be sent that the way things are being done has to change. And the best way to do that is to get rid of the person ostensibly in charge.

To wait almost a month to change out the campaign manager — after weeks of insisting the candidate had total faith in her — looks like plain old bad management. It’s Campaigning 101 that a struggling campaign gets rid of the campaign manager first. To not do so, wait, wait and then do it anyway? Ridiculously inept.

The truth, of course, is that this whole debacle — and DeSantis’ campaign has been a struggle from his announcement on Twitter until now — is likely not Peck’s fault. Or certainly the fault of anyone who has been let go over the last 3+ weeks.

As I have written in this space, I believe that Ron DeSantis has a Ron DeSantis problem.

This is not, I believe, fundamentally about whose name is at the top of the campaign’s org chart. Or whether DeSantis runs as an insurgent outsider. Or his “woke” message.

This strikes me as an issue as fundamental and old as time: The candidate simply is not up to the task.

The entire aura around DeSantis was built around his 20+ point reelection victory in 2022. But, that victory may have looked more impressive than it actually was. His opponent — Charlie Crist — was a party switcher neither liked nor trusted by Democrats, and hated by Republicans. And the Florida Democratic Party had been utterly decimated over the past decade — to the point where it was effectively non competitive in most statewide races.

Yes, DeSantis won big. But what if that victory was at least as much about the poor quality of his opponent and the near-moribund state of the Democratic party as it was about how great he was/is?

DeSantis has now been running for president for almost three months. (He announced May 24.). At no point in those three months have I seen him have a moment on the campaign trail or in an interview.

In fact, quite the opposite. Repeatedly over those three months, DeSantis has committed dumb mistakes, picked useless fights and seemed, in the main, entirely out of his depth.

Polling tells the story. After a small initial bump following his announcement, DeSantis’ national numbers have steadily collapsed — to the point where Donald Trump now leads him by nearly 40 points.

DeSantis has to show — and sometime soon — that the promise so many people believed he had when he won in Florida last November is still within him. Somewhere.

The best — and, honestly, maybe last — chance for him to do just that is the August 23 Republican debate. My educated guess is that Trump will skip the debate, allowing DeSantis a more central role. It’s now an opportunity he legitimately cannot afford to miss.