Scraps of words and music in the break instead of a Twitter discussion: US governor DeSantis’ campaign start was anything but smooth – and commentators questioned whether the Republican was popular enough at all.
“I’m Ron DeSantis, and I’m running for President to lead our great American comeback.” With these words ended a video that Ron DeSantis published to kick off his official campaign. Anyone who then wanted to join the announced discussion on Twitter at 6 p.m. local time – midnight German time – only got to hear short snippets of words and intermission music for a good 20 minutes.
An embarrassing mishap. Moderator David Sacks apologized for this with more than 500,000 participants on Twitter Spaces: “I think we’ve melted the internet,” he said. And Twitter boss Elon Musk said sheepishly: “Yeah, that was crazy. Sorry.” And then the almost desperate question: “Governor DeSantis, can you hear us?”
DeSantis points the finger at Biden
He could – and justified his candidacy by saying that the country was heading in the wrong direction: “Our southern borders are collapsing, drugs are pouring into the country, our cities are being hollowed out by a peak in crime,” said DeSantis, who is responsible for all the abuses President Joe Biden called, driven by the “woken mob”.
“Woke” – this keyword appeared again and again at DeSantis. It describes his political enemy, the left in the country, which he believes is completely wrong in its fixation on alleged discrimination and social inequality.
Trump’s name is consistently avoided
However, DeSantis avoided one name in his opening interviews: Donald Trump. For his part, the ex-president reacted to the DeSantis candidacy with new sharp attacks, a flood of emails and social media posts, and a video in which he accused DeSantis of only wanting to copy himself, Trump. The truth is there is only one, the real Donald Trump.
Most US commentators not only referred to the rather embarrassing Twitter glitch at the start for DeSantis, but also questioned whether DeSantis is popular enough beyond Florida. “People want to see if he has that elusive, extra something, if he can deal with people, inspire with speeches,” said David Urban, former Republican campaign adviser at CNN.
And for former Democratic campaign adviser Karen Finney, the key question was, “Can DeSantis win the Republican primary and then use his far-right positions to reach key voters in the center when many of his policies aren’t very popular nationally?”
One thing is certain: the primary election campaign in the USA is entering a new phase.