Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (right) launched his long-awaited campaign for the 2024 presidential nomination in a conversation that was streamed live on Twitter, the now controversial billionaire owner. The unprecedented online event was supposed to propel DeSantis into the race and help him regain some of the ground he lost in recent polls that show former President Donald Trump the overwhelming favorite in the GOP field.
but live stream didn’t go as planned, flaws DeSantis’ announcement delayed up to 20 minutes. By the time he was finally able to deliver his remarks, more than half of the original online audience of 600,000 had left. Moderator and GOP donor David Sachs claimed that so many people wanted to hear DeSantis that they were “melting down the servers, which is a good sign.” DeSantis’ campaign said it raised $1 million online in under an hour. But rivals had a field day mocking the incident. “Glitch. Technical issues. Inconvenient silence. Complete failure to launch. And that’s just the candidate!” A spokesman for Trump sent the message to reporters.
DeSantis, 44, spoke about his anti-lockdown COVID policies and his anti-woke campaign, and promised to lead a “Great American Comeback” if elected. But Twitter disturbances, not attacks on his left, dominated coverage of his launch. Did Twitter Mishaps Derail DeSantis’ Campaign Before It Started?
What are the commentators saying?
The debacle was a “political disaster for DeSantis”. David Smith said in The Guardian, When Musk invited DeSantis to make his announcement on Twitter, the governor apparently thought it was a chance to “make a little political history, show off your tech savvy, and take down your rival, the once undisputed world tweeting champion.” Poke Donald Trump.” But this “forgiveness experience did little to suggest” that DeSantis “is capable of controlling a global superpower armed with nuclear weapons.” He “built the whole theory of his candidacy around the idea that he is an efficient Florida CEO with attention to detail,” and now he has shown the world that it is all smoke and mirrors.
“Despite technical hiccups,” the launch marked a great start for DeSantis’ campaign, Elle Purnell said in The Federalist, The “gatekeeping media” of left-wing activists played down DeSantis’ announcement no matter what. But instead of fielding “bad faith” questions from political hacks at The New York Times or CNN — the rising star in Florida — by becoming the first presidential candidate to take this big step in a live Twitter space event, “Americans should be able to get their unfiltered… Got a chance to voice opinions about issues like the border crisis, woke corporatism, the threat of cancellation (financial or otherwise) for conservatives, digital currencies and bureaucratic redundancies.
There’s no point in denying these “tech snafus” made for a bad first impression, Jim Geraghty said in National Review, When eager voters show up when you tell them, and all they hear is a long silence, “That’s bad.” But anyone who thinks “DeSantis’ campaign is doomed” must be amnesiac. The presidential candidates had “over-embarrassing moments,” from Howard Dean’s scream in the tank to Michael Dukakis to Jeb Bush’s “please clap.” Similarly, “Insisting all the accident shows the Florida governor’s huge interest in the presidential campaign” is transparent and ineffective spin. The truth, as always, lies in between. What happens next is what matters. “When the history of the Ron DeSantis 2024 presidential campaign is written, his announcement will be just one chapter.”
What will happen next?
“Ron DeSantis Is Already Looking for a Reboot,” Alex Leary in The Wall Street Journal said, Some Republicans see DeSantis’ “decision to avoid a more traditional kickoff” and the meltdown that followed, “underscores a central point he is trying to make: He will defeat his main rival for the Republican nomination.” There is a disciplined and capable alternative to the turmoil that surrounds Donald Trump.” DeSantis immediately began working to get back on track by “announcing an aggressive travel schedule to early primary voting states” and using interviews with conservative radio hosts and fundraising speeches to show that, in this first Contrary to impression, he is ready for the national stage.
Despite this speed bump and his declining polling numbers, “DeSantis may be the only Republican who can beat Trump in the 2024 GOP primary,” Geoffrey Skelly at FiveThirtyEight said, He has “a sterling fundraising record”, with $80 million remaining from a $200 million 2022 re-election campaign, a record for a gubernatorial candidate. “The governor of Florida is still held in high esteem by Republicans, and his conservative achievements and fundraising prowess could provide the means for recovery – or even victory.” But that won’t happen unless he can pull off the difficult balancing act of “attracting Trump supporters while maintaining support from Trump-sceptical Republicans.”