Jeff Roe Resigns from Ron DeSantis Super PAC After Staff Leaks Massive Turmoil Amid Campaign Collapse
Following a scathing insider report of the turmoil within the campaign and SuperPAC for presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, chief strategist Jeff Roe resigns.
It is stunning to contemplate the starting point of $269,000,000 [and more since] has essentially done nothing except destroy the public image and brand of Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis. No presidential campaign has ever amassed such a proactive funding war chest and blown it to smithereens before the first votes have even taken place.
The Washington Post presented a scathing report outlining details provided by 22 people in the DeSantis campaign and Super PAC. Within hours of that report being posted, Jeff Roe quit.
WaPo – […] With just weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, the experiment is now in tatters. The super PAC that funded almost all of the DeSantis advertising and field programs and much of the candidate’s travel and events has been sidelined by the people that created it.
[…] Five senior officials have left Never Back Down since late November. Three officials with Roe’s firm were fired, and the board chairman and the founding chief executive both resigned, amid internal concerns about legal compliance. A verbal conflict from inside the group’s Atlanta offices became public, as did DeSantis’s own misgivings about the outside group’s leadership. The governor and his campaign staff have been frustrated by reporting on the drama around Never Back Down and critical of the group’s ad strategy, with DeSantis’s second campaign manager, James Uthmeier, publicly instructing donors to give elsewhere for TV ads......
Almost everyone in the operation and in the promotion thereof, are retreads from the failed Ted Cruz campaign of 2016. Someone in professional GOPe circles had the idea to enmesh the Never Trump group with the Bush team and try to build a brand image for Ron DeSantis that could co-opt the MAGA base.
“The super PAC model of winning a presidential primary, I think, is staggering, if not on the ropes,” said one DeSantis donor. “And if you’re going to have a successful presidential primary campaign you need to be able to raise hard dollars.”
It was a stupid strategy from the outset, made even worse by their tone-deaf missing of reality.
Hat Tip: Sundance and more Here
Will the last one out the door, please turn-off the lights.
Following a scathing insider report of the turmoil within the campaign and SuperPAC for presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, chief strategist Jeff Roe resigns.
It is stunning to contemplate the starting point of $269,000,000 [and more since] has essentially done nothing except destroy the public image and brand of Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis. No presidential campaign has ever amassed such a proactive funding war chest and blown it to smithereens before the first votes have even taken place.
The Washington Post presented a scathing report outlining details provided by 22 people in the DeSantis campaign and Super PAC. Within hours of that report being posted, Jeff Roe quit.
WaPo – […] With just weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, the experiment is now in tatters. The super PAC that funded almost all of the DeSantis advertising and field programs and much of the candidate’s travel and events has been sidelined by the people that created it.
[…] Five senior officials have left Never Back Down since late November. Three officials with Roe’s firm were fired, and the board chairman and the founding chief executive both resigned, amid internal concerns about legal compliance. A verbal conflict from inside the group’s Atlanta offices became public, as did DeSantis’s own misgivings about the outside group’s leadership. The governor and his campaign staff have been frustrated by reporting on the drama around Never Back Down and critical of the group’s ad strategy, with DeSantis’s second campaign manager, James Uthmeier, publicly instructing donors to give elsewhere for TV ads......
Almost everyone in the operation and in the promotion thereof, are retreads from the failed Ted Cruz campaign of 2016. Someone in professional GOPe circles had the idea to enmesh the Never Trump group with the Bush team and try to build a brand image for Ron DeSantis that could co-opt the MAGA base.
“The super PAC model of winning a presidential primary, I think, is staggering, if not on the ropes,” said one DeSantis donor. “And if you’re going to have a successful presidential primary campaign you need to be able to raise hard dollars.”
It was a stupid strategy from the outset, made even worse by their tone-deaf missing of reality.
Hat Tip: Sundance and more Here
Will the last one out the door, please turn-off the lights.