In the 21st century, images are everything. Americans have shorter attention spans than ever. Consequently, when you have technical glitches, such as what happened with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ rocky rollout of his presidential campaign, the message gets drowned out.
“I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback,” DeSantis said in his Twitter Spaces announcement once the technical difficulties ended. “Look, we know our country is going in the wrong direction. We see it with our eyes, and we feel it in our bones.”
DeSantis rattled off a list of issues he is campaigning on such as the collapse of the southern border with Mexico, spiking urban crime, and how President Joe Biden is failing his job, among other issues.
SNAFUs Obscure Message
Today, the talk is not about his message. Instead, talk around the water cooler and in the media is about the unprofessionalism and eight-and-a-half minutes of dead air during his rollout.
DeSantis had hoped to debut his campaign and his message to millions via Twitter Spaces in a forum sponsored by Twitter CEO Elon Musk. Many are now saying the Florida governor is not ready for prime time, instead of what he would do as president and why he should be the Republican nominee instead of Donald Trump.
“Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign rollout on Twitter Spaces was a mess to say the least, filled with technical snafus,” HuffPost said on Twitter.
Musk blamed the “massive number of people online” for the technical problems.
President Joe Biden jumped into the fray with a tweet mocking DeSantis’ attempt to get off the ground with his campaign. The tweet asked “Can you launch a presidential campaign?” overlaying the sour audio from the rollout.
His main rival, former President Donald Trump, posted a meme on his Instagram page mocking the rollout, showing Musk and DeSantis in a Twitter Spaces room with George Soros, World Economic Forum head Klaus Schwab, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Adolf Hitler, the Devil, and the FBI.
David Sacks: DeSantis Melted the Servers
“I think we’re definitely breaking new ground here. As far as I know, no major presidential candidate has ever announced their candidacy on social media in this way, certainly in a Twitter Space,” said DeSantis supporter David Sacks said following a few seconds of rough audio immediately prior to the announcement.
Sacks defended the mess up in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, saying that over a million people tried getting into the Twitter Spaces room simultaneously, which overloaded the servers.
“DeSantis just melted the servers,” Sacks told Ingraham. “We had so much interest.”
DeSantis Defenders Play Damage Control
Conservative talk show host Erick Erickson told his followers in a Wednesday email, “It was bold. It turned out to be a mistake. It is recoverable. But it is a reminder that some things should be under full control of the candidate, particularly the launch day.”
Erickson noted on NewsNation that no one will care about the rocky launch in the long run. He believes that DeSantis likely is at a floor in the polls at an average of around 25 percent and that Trump is at a ceiling of about around 50 percent. He thinks DeSantis is in a unique position versus Trump, because his SuperPACs have a ground game with college students. DeSantis also has more than $110 million primed for his run through his Never Back Down PAC and Friends of Ron DeSantis state campaign account.
“I think it will go down in the future for campaign strategists that you do need to control your launch and not have to hand it off to Elon Musk,” Erickson said. “Now that he’s here, let’s see what he does. I think there’s indications that he can fire on all cylinders. He’s going to be in Iowa and New Hampshire in the next couple of weeks.”
John Rossomando was a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
