YAHOO
Ron DeSantis needs “to take a sledgehammer” to Vivek Ramaswamy, the political newcomer who is rising in the polls. He should “defend Donald Trump” when Chris Christie inevitably attacks the former president. And he needs to “attack Joe Biden and the media” no less than three to five times.
A firm associated with the super political action committee that has effectively taken over DeSantis’ presidential campaign posted online hundreds of pages of blunt advice, research memos and internal polling in early nominating states to guide the Florida governor before the high-stakes Republican presidential debate Wednesday in Milwaukee.
The trove of documents provides an extraordinary glimpse into the thinking of the DeSantis operation about a debate the candidate’s advisers see as crucial.
“There are four basic must-dos,” one of the memos urges DeSantis, whom the document refers to as “GRD.”
“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 documents were posted this week on the website of Axiom Strategies, the company owned by Jeff Roe, the chief strategist of DeSantis’ super PAC, Never Back Down.
The New York Times was alerted to the existence of the documents by a person not connected to the DeSantis campaign or the super PAC. After the Times reached out to Never Back Down for comment Thursday, the group removed from the website a key memo summarizing the suggested strategy for the debate.
Super PACs are barred by law from strategizing in private with political campaigns. To avoid running afoul of those rules, it is not unusual for the outside groups to post polling documents in the open, albeit in an obscure corner of the internet where insiders know to look.
Posting such documents online is risky — the news media or rivals can discover them, and the advice can prove embarrassing. But super PACs often decide the risk is justified to convey what they consider crucial nonpublic information to the candidate without violating the law.
But it is unusual, as appears to be the case, for a super PAC, or a consulting firm working for it, to post documents on its own website — and in such expansive detail, down to the exact estimate of turnout in the Iowa caucuses (“now 216,561”), and including one New Hampshire poll with more than 400 pages of detailed findings. The documents are so strategy-heavy that it appears that the super PAC, which recently had a top official, David Polyansky, leave for the campaign, is trying to dictate how the candidate should conduct himself on the debate stage.
The DeSantis super PAC and campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Notably missing from the debate materials is a document focused on Trump, who has been attacking DeSantis mercilessly for months. The former president, who has said he is unlikely to participate in the debate, is also not among the candidates whose previous attacks against DeSantis were highlighted by the super PAC, in a preview of what he might expect onstage. The main strategy memo for the debate contains no mention of policy — and the advice steers DeSantis away from talking about specific solutions because doing so won’t get him headlines.
Key among the documents is one entitled “Debate Memo,” dated Aug. 15, which cynically describes how DeSantis — who has been battered by critical coverage and has struggled to capture attention in the face of Trump’s indictments — could wring the most favorable media attention from the debate.
Addressed simply to “interested parties,” the memo describes “Roger Ailes’ Orchestra Pit Theory,” quoting the now-deceased Fox News executive and political strategist’s well-known maxim that a candidate who lays out a comprehensive plan on foreign policy will draw less coverage than the one who accidentally falls off the debate stage.
