Ron Desantis might be peaking too early

[Landslide Lyndon]

DeSantis won't be the first highly touted candidate who probably won't survive his first contact with voters.
Remember Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Tim Pawlenty, Scott Walker, etc.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Rudy Giuliani led primary polling for the entirety of 2007 and failed primarily because he was a strategic idiot who placed all his chips in Florida.

My take on Tim Pawlenty is similar to my take on Scott Walker except that Tim Pawlenty never even polled well.  Pawlenty never got above 4% and most of the hype was based on his having been considered as a VP nominee in 2008.

In short I don't think any of these comparisons for DeSantis are apt.

Giuliani followed the Florida strategy for the simple reason that his numbers tanked in Iowa and New Hampshire the moment he started campaigning there. He was one of those candidates that the more you see of the less you like.

Pawlenty was the darling of DC press corps. A two-term blue state governor who was in good standing with both wings of the party. But everyone else knew better that the guy had all the charisma of a wet blanket and he floundered in the debates. Michelle Bachmann of all people was the one who did a number on him and he never recovered.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I think the difference between Scott Walker and Ron DeSantis is that DeSantis actually did all this trolly stuff that the base loves.

DeSantis can get up on stage and talk about "banning the woke agenda from our schools" and "sending illegal immigrants to blue states" or "stopping Dr. Fauci from telling us how to live our lives" and people will cheer and applaud.

Meanwhile Walker was known for making life miserable for unions and rejecting Obamacare funds, neither of which are issues that resonate with the base.  They resonate with the billionaire donor class and writers for The Federalist which is how he got so much hype.  And then nobody cared once he actually got on stage.

This is why I think that a lot of the hype around DeSantis as some god-tier general election candidate is very odd. Most of his major 'accomplishments' are just culture war nonsense that only appeals to the GOP base. Normal people and swing voters don't care about that stuff. I'm not convinced why DeSantis whining about Disney being too woke is any less embarrassing than most of the stuff Trump does.

Yeah, both Democratic and Republican operatives admitted that all the anti-trans, anti-woke ads aired this election cycle moved zero votes. The vast majority of the electorate just doesn't care for these issues.

[Landslide Lyndon]

1. Rudy Giuliani was under the gun in late 2007 for a lot of reasons that had far more to do with his personal actions and that of his associates than anything related to campaigning or strategy. His long time political ally in New York Bernie Kerik got into trouble with the law. There were accusations that Rudy had misused funds to carry on a personal affair, while his wife was ill or something salacious of that nature. And then he was out of touch with the GOP base on abortion, guns and immigration.

2. Rudy was not actually collapsing in New Hampshire. Romney had been dominating New Hampshire for months with around 30% of the vote, Rudy had been in the high teens and McCain was right behind him or tied. This only really massively changed, after he pulled out, started railing against the New Hampshire Primary and then he tanked into the single digits.

Even if you doubt my theory as to why Rudy pulled out, the established narrative of him "tanking in the polls in NH, fleeing to Florida" just doesn't hold up according to the most credible polling outfits at the time. At most he ebbed a little, but that was likely more to do with McCain's recovery than to a collapse by Rudy.

3. Pawlenty's major problem was Mitt Romney. They basically occupied the same "boring rich guy who is pushing for the border hawk vote" space.  If Romney doesn't run in 2012, I think Pawlenty actually has a path in that situation.  

You might be right about Giuliani and New Hampshire. But he definitely started imploding in Iowa the moment he set foot there. His positions were well known to most Republicans when he was leading in the polls. I think it's easy to say by now that the guy is a sleazy jerk and with a personality like that it's difficult to thrive in the arena of early state retail politics.

Pawlenty was not a rich guy like Romney. On the contrary, he ran as a working class, populist Republican, with his mullet and Sam's Club shtick. His biggest problem was that he was so booooooring. But people like Cillizza were convinced that he was presidential timber. It was so funny when he dropped out and so many DC pundits were despondent and couldn't explain what went wrong.