The main super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) posted its entire debate strategy for the GOP White House hopeful online.
Hundreds of pages of documents now available to the public outline the recommended strategy for the struggling DeSantis in the first Republican presidential primary debate, set for next week in Milwaukee.
The overall strategy involves halfheartedly defending GOP front-runner Donald Trump in response to expected criticism from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie while hammering Vivek Ramaswamy whose dramatic rise in the polls threatens DeSantis' runner-up status. In addition, DeSantis is expected to attack the media and President Biden, red meat for the GOP base.
Key among the documents is one entitled “Debate Memo,” dated Aug. 15, which cynically describes how Mr. DeSantis — who has been battered by critical coverage and has struggled to capture attention in the face of Mr. Trump's indictments — could wring the most favorable media attention from the debate.
Addressed simply to “interested parties,” the memo describes “Roger Ailes' Orchestra Pit Theory,” quoting the now-deceased Fox News executive and political strategist's well-known maxim that a candidate who lays out a comprehensive plan on foreign policy will draw less coverage than the one who accidentally falls off the debate stage.
To that end, the memo lists “potential Orchestra Pit Moments,” beginning with one drama-making opportunity, complete with a recommendation for a Trump-style insult: “Take a sledgehammer to Vivek Ramaswamy: ‘Fake Vivek' Or ‘Vivek the Fake.'”
Related documents — one runs nearly 5,000 words across 17 pages — show that the DeSantis operation advises portraying Mr. Ramaswamy as an inauthentic conservative.
Regarding Chris Christie, the debate prep memo urges DeSantis to accuse Christie of undermining Republicans to advance his brand as a Never Trump Republican. One recommended attack line involves accusing Christie of auditioning for a show on a liberal news network: “Trump isn't here, so let's just leave him alone. He's too weak to defend himself here. We're all running against him. I don't think we want to join forces with someone on this stage who's auditioning for a show on MSNBC.”
The blunt report was posted by a firm owned by Jeff Roe, the lead strategist for the DeSantis-allied Never Back Down PAC. Although super PACs are prohibited from sharing advice privately with candidates, the scope of these documents (involving more than 400 pages of detailed findings from painstaking research) is unprecedented. As is the inexplicable decision to post the report on a website closely associated with the DeSantis campaign.
Campaigns typically find obscure sites buried in the ether of the world wide web to access sensitive “public” information from super PACs before it disappears.
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