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The DeSantis Consultant Mind Trap

After stumbles and setbacks, Ron DeSantis’s growing pains are becoming more evident to G.O.P. operatives: his inability to manage media outside Florida, political missteps, organizational drama, and a ham-fisted approach to his chief opponent.

The DeSantis campaign’s informational clampdown hasn’t been as airtight outside of the Florida bubble.
The DeSantis campaign’s informational clampdown hasn’t been as airtight outside of the Florida bubble. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Tina Nguyen
March 29, 2023

As his expected presidential announcement looms, Ron DeSantis’s usually staid, buttoned-up, disciplined orbit unexpectedly lost altitude last week. Granted, plenty of the chaos was a predictable consequence of DeSantis engaging Piers Morgan to test a few negative opinions about Donald Trump, breaking his self-imposed omertà, and provoking the former president and his allies to carpet-bomb DeSantis in response. Among the latest hits was the insinuation that DeSantis is secretly an establishment tool of Karl Rove and Paul Ryan, a cardinal sin on par, at least in MAGA circles, with Trump’s previous slander labeling DeSantis a “groomer.”