Posted on 10/22/2023 6:12:35 AM PDT by Texas Fossil
CTH readers don’t need to spend too much time digging into the granules of this recent New York Times article about how Christina Pushaw organized an online “influencer campaign” for Ron DeSantis that has failed miserably [SEE HERE]. However, it’s still funny to see the confirmation, and the people from inside the operation telling the NYT the group gets daily email instructions.
I wrote about the obvious transparency of the effort well over a year ago, and then continued to track it as the operation unfolded and grew just before the “official launch” of the DeSantis campaign. “In late 2021, early 2022, Ms. Pushaw invited a group of “influencers” to spend time with Governor DeSantis. It’s not a debatable event. Factually, the collective group took gleeful pictures of their first visit on January 6, 2022, and continued to post frequent pictures on their social media of events throughout last year.”{link}
As the DeSantis operation collapses into a parody of itself, some of the recruited influencers are now speaking about how the astroturf operation was organized. Everyone who watched it unfold, knows it was the stupidity of Pushaw who tried to fake the support system, built the operation on fraud and then sold it to a bunch of billionaires who now -according to the Times reporting- have major regrets.
(New York Times) – In early May, as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida prepared to run for president, about a dozen right-wing social media influencers gathered at his pollster’s home for cocktails and a poolside buffet.
The guests all had large followings or successful podcasts and were already fans of the governor. But Mr. DeSantis’s team wanted to turn them into a battalion of on-message surrogates who could tangle with Donald J. Trump and his supporters online.
[…] Four months later, those worries seem more than justified. Mr. DeSantis’s hyper-online strategy, once viewed as a potential strength, quickly became a glaring weakness on the presidential trail, with a series of gaffes, unforced errors and blown opportunities, according to former staff members, influencers with ties to the campaign and right-wing commentators.
Even after a recent concerted effort to reboot, the campaign has had trouble shaking off a reputation for being thin-skinned and meanspirited online, repeatedly insulting Trump supporters and alienating potential allies.
[…] Ms. Peck exercised little oversight of the campaign’s online operations, which were anchored by a team known internally as the “war room,” according to the three former aides. The team consisted of high-energy, young staffers — many just out of college — who spent their days scanning the internet for noteworthy story lines, composing posts and dreaming up memes and videos they hoped would go viral. At the helm was Christina Pushaw, Mr. DeSantis’s rapid response director.
[…] In early August, the aerospace tycoon Robert Bigelow, who had been by far the largest contributor to Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, said he would halt donations, saying “extremism isn’t going to get you elected.” Money from many other key supporters of Mr. DeSantis has also dried up, including from the billionaire hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin.
Terry Sullivan, a Republican political consultant who was Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign manager in 2016, said the bizarre videos amounted to a warning sign for donors that Mr. DeSantis’s campaign was chaotic, undisciplined and chasing fringe voters.
[…] The existing network of DeSantis influencers has presented challenges for the campaign. Online surrogates for Mr. DeSantis have repeatedly parroted, word for word, the talking points emailed to them each day by the campaign, undermining the effort to project an image of widespread — and organic — support.
Last month, for example, three different accounts almost simultaneously posted about Mr. Trump getting booed at a college football game in Iowa. Bill Mitchell, a DeSantis supporter with a large following on X, said the identical posts were coincidental.
“I talk with all of the team members when necessary but other than the daily emails get no specific direction,” he said. (read more)
The pathetic nature of the failure is ironically apropos for Ron DeSantis.
Everything about the DeSantis operation was/is fabricated, fake, constructed to give appearances, inauthentic and astroturf. Voters are not stupid; they can see it and feel it in the construct as delivered. The effort of the DeSantis operation, from Sea Island to Christina Pushaw, highlights how little they think of the American electorate. They actually believed this con would work.
Pushaw thought she could mold DeSantis into the next Zelenskyy by using the same operation in the USA that was used in Ukraine. It didn’t work.
But at same time burning through the Globalist's money.
Nothing I read here talked about how this group of experts was going to get Trump supporters to support DeSantis. Rather, it sounds like the mission statement for the public relations group for the Dixie Chicks.
I’ve criticized DeSantis enough here on FR over the last 10-12 months, but I still find his whole charade as a presidential candidate quite baffling. For a guy who had generated so much publicity and exposure for himself, his whole campaign was shockingly amateurish.
He has been a pretty good governor. BUT, he is in over his head. The big bucks guys & gals can buy almost anybody.
Except Trump.
Trump is certainly not perfect, but he gets the big picture.
His ego is large, but his successes have been too.
Now, with O’Biden’s DOJ and many of the Federal and State Appeals Judges being bought (many by Soros) the game has changed. There is no rule of law.
Yes, that is why it failed. It only succeeded in convincing big money to back them. Results, almost ZERO.
Let’s face it, the only reason that DeSantis or Haley or whoever is staying in the race is because they think Trump will be jailed forcing him out of the campaign. Ergo, they just need to stick around because one Trump can’t run, one of the ankle biters will be left as the only choice.
Sad and pathetic.
To be clear, what I mean by sad and pathetic is the seemingly half hearted campaigns being run as if to say, “we just need to tread water until this guy is in prison, then one of us is in by default.”
Lifted online by deception
Lifted in life by elevator 6” heels
Rob DeSanctus 👠 2024
There are a handful of posters here directly involved in the charade this article talks about. They never realized just how pathetically transparent it was to anyone paying attention and ohhhh did the members here pay attention.
I know who you are, everyone else knows who you are and every post you ever make will be seen through the lens of who you really are.
Wear it......
Link to the NYT piece but without the paywall:
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/how-ron-desantis-lost-the-internet/
I’ll withold judgement because a lot of Shenanigans get played in Iowa. It often surprises. If the Iowa numbers look anything like the polls everyone should immediately drop out and endorse Trump because it’ll only get better for him. Iowa is probably one of his weaker primary states.
I know who you are, everyone else knows who you are and every post you ever make will be seen through the lens of who you really are.
Sadly, only a few FReepers will remember.
“Sadly, only a few FReepers will remember.”
it really doesn’t matter very much, because these kind of paid trolls pretty much disappear anyway when their money dries up ...
Iowa has long been considered a bell weather for elections.
The spread between Trump and the rest of the pack is HUGE. In this case, I don’t believe any of the opposition will pull forward to threaten him. No matter how much the Big Money and Big Media spin it.
Iowa is not a bell weather. Huckabee, Cruz, Santorum all won and they all got handily beaten. If Trump wins Iowa by 20-30 points then all you’re doing by staying in the race beyond that is spending money to prop up Bidens chances of beaten Trump. There is an argument to be made the thr crazy Iowa caucus rules are obtuse enough to produce an upset or a closer than expected result. If that doesn’t happen you’re just a deep state operative if you stay in.
Pretty much the remaining vocal desantis supporter/nevertrumpers are resorting to almost constant deliberate lies and mis-representations about Trump and his supporters, in hopes that they can still gaslight and sway people away from Trump.
For instance, they frequently post how the polls are wrong, and Trump has little support because he has few individual donations, while desanctimonious has millions, with 2 images of the latest FEC reports...
That’s true....Trump is getting few individual contributions.. to his direct campaign committee...
Because if you go almost anywhere where money changes hands, money goes through the Save America JFC, not directly to the Trump campaign....
And donations would show up as individual donations there....
Apparrently, these desantis supporters/nevertrumpers don’t care that they blatantly show the same lack of moral character as desantis does, anymore....
* * *
You're right, Alberta's Child. In fact, it's frightful because here is a man who proposes to be leader of the Free World. DeSantis is very dangerous to our Republic.
On the face of it, his support for conservative legislation in red Florida is commendable. But look at the incessant lies DeSantis has spoken in the last few months.
When you read these things, you wonder what country DeSantis lives in. How can he ignore Trump's magnificent work at raising the public's awareness and attacking the massive fraud and corruption being perpetrated on We the People by the D.C. establishment?
Experts need to psychologically analyze the man because he's quite delusional: "holding false beliefs or judgments about external reality that are held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary."
One particular fetish I notice is regarding his military service in the JAG Corp and former naval officer. It's manifested in a few ways:
Of course, this discussion may soon become mute because DeSantis is being torpedoed by MAGA supporters on FR and elsewhere.
DeSantis' campaign is already LISTING dangerously to port. Donors are abandoning ship. The campaign crew is getting smaller and smaller. Today it operates in only one state now: Iowa.
It won't be very long before DeSantis lowers the lifeboat for himself and takes home the MegaBucks in Donor contributions as his campaign vessel dips below the waves and descends to Davy Jones's Locker.
Hey FRiend... meant to copy you om this post but I flubbed the recipient box. Here’s the link below:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/4191440/posts?page=17#17
Cheers...
.......listless vessels? ........he’s really out of it..........
RDS. seems to be the spitting image of SloJo (with less BS).
Unless a kind soul finds it within theirself to offer him a pair of crutches, this individual will never win another office seat again. Shooting both feet must be painful indeed.
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