A trove of what appears to be campaign strategy documents posted online by a super PAC advises Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to come down hard on the outsider candidate nipping at his heels and to shield frontrunner Donald Trump from attacks by another candidate.
Hundreds of pages of research and data purported to have been produced to assist the flagging DeSantis campaign were posted to the website of Axiom, a firm associated with the super PAC Never Back Down, as reported by The New York Times.
Included in the trove — whose contents have not been confirmed as genuinely belonging to DeSantis’ campaign — is a two-page memorandum laying out some basic rhetorical strategies that the Florida governor might employ.
The memo instructs DeSantis, who it refers to as “GRD,” on four essential “must-dos.”
“1. Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times. 2. State GRD’s 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.”
The memo suggests adhering to “Roger Ailes’ Orchestra Pit Theory,” referencing the late head of Fox News Roger Ailes’ contention that if “[y]ou have two guys on stage and one guy says, ‘I have a solution to the Middle East problem,’ and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?”
In other words, Ailes was saying that optics are often more important than substance when it comes to gaining favorable media coverage.
In that spirit, the memo encourages DeSantis to “[t]ake a sledge-hammer to Vivek Ramaswamy” by calling him “Fake Vivek” or “Vivek the Fake.”
The memo also advises that DeSantis defend his chief rival Donald Trump when Chris Christie — the former governor of New Jersey who has staked his campaign theme on being the anti-Trump candidate — attacks the former president, who has opted not to participate in the debate.
“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,” says the memo.
The memo then instructs the Florida governor to use “a personal anecdote story” involving his family while “showing emotion,” as a segue to his ultimate pitch as the rightful successor to Trump. The pitch reads:
“Many voters, like me, voted for Donald Trump, love Donald Trump. He was a breath of fresh air and the first president to tell the elite where to
shove it. But he was attacked all the time, provoked attacks all the time, and it was non-stop. The drama affected families.
“Trump’s drama pitted brother against brother, friend against friend. He’s got so many distractions that it’s almost impossible for him to focus on moving the country forward. This election is too important.
“We need someone that can fight for you instead of fighting for himself. We need someone who is going to take the torch and carry it to the next chapter. I’m the only one on this stage who will do that, who can do that, and who will keep the movement that Donald Trump started going.”
Some Republican political strategists consulted by media members, including NBC News, have agreed with the advice contained in the memorandum.
However, there is some suspicion about how the documents appearing to be campaign strategy memos found their way onto a website that anyone could access, per NBC News. If the memos are genuine, DeSantis’ rivals could see him coming and be aware of his strategy, which might mean the leak was an intentional act of sabotage against the DeSantis campaign, per NBC News.
DeSantis campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo responded to the memo by saying, “This was not a campaign memo and we were not aware of it prior to the article. We are well accustomed to the attacks from all sides as the media and other candidates realize Ron DeSantis is the strongest candidate best positioned to take down Joe Biden,” according to CNN.