What is the Great American Comeback?

The DeSantis Team is adjusting its strategy. It has let go a number of staff as it tries to recapture momentum. That’s smart. The media has rapidly suggested the DeSantis Team is headed towards financial disaster, which is silly. The campaign outraised President Trump’s campaign on a daily basis. But it does seem they were heavy with staff and are going to have a harder slog than they anticipated.

I think this is good.

Like it or not, no other candidate has the money or polling that DeSantis has outside of Trump, which is why DeSantis gets so much attention from here and elsewhere. It doesn’t mean he is my favorite or someone else’s favorite. What it does mean is he is currently the favorite for second place among voters. That, in turn, means he is most likely to become the favorite for first place and, in fact, poll after poll has shown a two man race would be to DeSantis’s advantage.

But this is not a two man race. It’s a dozen or so candidate that span genders, races, ethnicities, and geographic hubs of power. DeSantis failed to shut it down and now must compete for attention, not just with Trump, but with everyone else. Trump gets far more earned media (free media attention). DeSantis is going to sit down with Jake Tapper, which is great. Get him outside comfortable press with a more expansive message.

Hindsight is 20/20, but let me say two things about the DeSantis campaign so far. First, they are suffering a penalty in the press and perception of voters because, though he has only been in just over seven weeks, it has seemed like he was running since January. So everyone is using January polling to show a DeSantis decline, but he did not even get in until six months later. The polling has held steady since he got in, but the official entry and the early presumption present a bias against his campaign. In the future, I suspect gubernatorial candidates running for President will go back to the George W. Bush approach — form the exploratory committee and get surrogates out there quickly, finish the legislative session, then officially declare with a big launch after the legislative session is over.

Second, I continue to think DeSantis’s team flubbed the launch. Handing the launch day over to two of Russia’s biggest apologists, Musk and Sacks, on an unstable platform to nerd out on policies excluded tens of millions of Americans from participating and generated all sorts of bad press for the chaotic technical nonsense of Twitter Spaces.

You may not remember Tim Scott or Nikki Haley or Mike Pence or Donald Trump launching their campaigns, but a lot more people do remember them than DeSantis’s launch because those candidates all got to control the press coverage and optics with a big stage to define their message out of the gate. They got huge earned media. DeSantis got a crashed Twitter Space and bad headlines. It was a mistake.

Now, however, as the campaign makes adjustments, I have one adjustment I hope they make.

What the hell does the Great American Comeback mean?

It sounds like the theme of a great message. I just haven’t really heard the message. Stop with the woke stuff, please sir. We get it. You can fight Disney, the trans agenda, and the local school board.

But Presidents do not fight local school boards nor do Presidents adjust the tolls on highways.

So what does the Great American Comeback mean to Bill and Penny of Cedar Rapids, IA, who have had to homeschool their three kids under fifteen because the local school system failed them?

What does the Great American Comeback mean for Sundar, an immigrant from India, who owns a local printing shop in Charlotte, NC, and is struggling with spiraling costs, an invasive IRS, and a shortage of competent employees?

What does the Great American Comeback mean for the Simmons family of Scottsdale, AZ. They’re both over seventy, live far from their grandkids, and are suddenly worried about making ends meet in their retirement years due to Bidenomics?

The campaign is off to a good start with Casey DeSantis’s parental rights ad campaign. That issue is going to be the sleeper issue of 2024 and DeSantis is out of the gate with it. It pivots from the hardcore “I fight woke” stuff to moms and dads are going to have a White House fighter who makes sure their kids are prepared for the economic roar of the Great American Comeback — educated, not indoctrinated, with their parents in charge of them, not progressive teachers’ unions.

Tie is all together.

That should have been Day 1, instead of Twitter Spaces. That should have been on a big stage surrounded by people cheering on not just what DeSantis did in Florida, but what the Great American Comeback looks like for everyone else, culturally and economically.

The campaign can’t just pivot. It needs a unifying message tying together the individual components to the core theme. Maybe they have it. I pay attention to this stuff, though, and I haven’t seen it. Instead, it has been scatter shot interviews with people focused on the woke fight, not the Great American Comeback.

In 2000, George W. Bush’s theme was “help is on the way.”

In 2016, Donald Trump’s theme was “Make America Great Again.”

In 2020, Joe Biden’s theme was “Our best days still lie ahead.”

Every single issue was tied to those themes. George W. Bush, famously unable to stay on message, famously stayed on message in 2000. He said he was going to cut taxes for small businesses and they needed to know “help is on the way.” The military, worn out and underfunded and the parents of the soldiers needed to know “help is on the way.”

Dan Rather would ask, “Governor Bush, the NAACP says Texas needs hate crimes legislation and you have failed to take care of non-white voters?” Bush would respond, “Dan, I have a record of fighting for all families in Texas regardless of color and have improved all their lives and I want everyone to know whether they’re black or white or Hispanic or anyone else that help is on the way to get them back to work and get their kids a better education and keep them safe.”¹

Donald Trump kept telling people he would make America great again. Joe Biden would tell us he was going to return us back to normal and we needed to know that with his leadership our best days still lie ahead.

DeSantis is promising a great American comeback. So now the campaign needs to tie every single thing to that. What does it mean for parents? What does it mean for small businesses? What does it mean for retirees? What does it mean for workers?

Don’t tell us what you did in Florida. Tell us what a comeback means for America.

1. Interviewer: Governor DeSantis, you have spent your time fighting wokes. Your “don’t say gay” legislation is making families of trans kids flee Florida. Why are you excluding them?

DeSantis: Well, interviewer, it doesn’t matter whether you are gay, straight, trans, or whatever, Florida’s economy has elevated everyone and when I’m President, everyone in America, from every walk of life, will benefit from the Great American Comeback.

Interviewer: But what do you say to a family that fled Florida because they don’t feel safe due to your anti-trans policies?

DeSantis: Well the legislation was about parental rights and called the “Parental Rights in Education Act.” The left mischaracterized it and called it “Don’t Say Gay,” which I’d note you are embracing. Most Floridians, including Democrats, supported the legislation and most parents in America think their children need to learn to read and do math, not the gender unicorn and when I’m President, I’ll have parents’ backs so their kids are prepared for the Great American Comeback. Also, I’m sorry the you guys in the media scared families into fleeing Florida. The real tragedy is that where ever they fled, they’ll experience an economy and educational system that offers far less than the amazing opportunities Florida has under my Administration for all families regardless of gender identity. I hope they’ll come back, but if not, I know they’ll benefit with my presidency as we generate an economic explosion as part of our great American comeback.