Is Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., Hobbled by the Same Issues as Those of Mike Dukakis?
If you listen to all the political chatter on cable TV and podcasts, as well as read all the articles on conservative websites, Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., is getting a wagonload of unsolicited advice on how he can jump-start his stalled campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
But advice is like a pot of chili.
You should try a little of it yourself before you give anyone else a taste.
No, this writer isn't here to give Gov. DeSantis any advice.
I'm here to remind folks about another successful governor who ran for president 35 years ago and, as this writer sees it, he had the same problem as Ron DeSantis does now.
Please saddle up with me as we travel back to 1988, for a much needed explanation.
In that year the race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee began with a crowded field, one that included Al Gore, then a young senator from Tennessee, and Joe Biden, a senator from Delaware.
At the time, Gore was a conservative Democrat.
As such, he was a defense hawk who supported President Ronald Reagan’s plan to develop and deploy the MX missile to counter Soviet moves in the nuclear arms race.
This was before Gore had adopted his role as the doom and gloom prophet of the coming environmental apocalypse.
Joe Biden was then as he is today: the teller of tall tales about his life and accomplishments, which in many cases were, and are to this day, far less than truthful.
Biden dropped out in 1987 before any primary votes were cast after his word-for-word plagiarizing of a speech by British politician, Neil Kinnock, and other issues (baggage) caught up with him.
The early frontrunner and eventual nominee was that successful governor I spoke of earlier: Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts.
Dukakis based his campaign on what was dubbed by his consultants the "Massachusetts Miracle."
The claim was that Dukakis had taken a state that was suffering from bad economic times with an aging industrial base and transformed it into a booming high-tech mecca.
Dukakis was a technocrat not a visionary.
He ran his campaign as if he was interviewing for a job, albeit as a competent manager who could operate the levers of government.
But Dukakis was bloodless and passionless.
He never understood how to communicate with the average voter.
If America were a company, Dukakis would have been great in the executive suite crunching numbers and writing plans, but he didn’t understand the folks on the factory floor who actuall performed the work.
As The Washington Post said about him in April of 1988, "Michael Dukakis has a wonderful story to tell, but no capacity to tell it."
Dukakis’ well-oiled campaign rolled to the nomination over weak opposition.
It was a victory of superior technocratic organization — not an overarching vision of where he wanted to lead the country.
Come the general election of 1988, Dukakis was routed by the prep school patrician turned Texas oilman, George H.W. Bush who had successfully transformed himself to an "everyman" by trading his New England penny loafers for Texas cowboy boots and eating pork rinds right out of the bag.
Bush didn’t understand regular folks either, but he was darn sure better at faking it.
Fast forward to today’s upcoming 2024 Republican Presidential Primary Nomination and the budding campaign of Ron DeSantis.
Like Dukakis, DeSantis is running on his strong record as governor of the Sunshine State.
Under his leadership Florida has become the envy of the nation, bursting at the seams with growth and opportunity.
DeSantis has done an admirable job and deserves credit for what he's accomplished.
But like Dukakis, DeSantis seems bloodless and passionless.
He doesn’t seem to connect with the regular folks.
And in a primary battle where he is running against the Great Connector himself, Donald Trump, if DeSantis can’t do that, it is hard to see how he can win the nomination.
And like Dukakis, in media appearances DeSantis sounds as if he is interviewing for a job as a manager and not to be the leader of the free world.
Can Ron DeSantis, Navy veteran, find his sea legs and right the ship of his campaign?
Perhaps.
But we're not taking about just a "messaging problem" as some pundits have opined.
The things he needs to do can’t be taught, especially in the intense heat of a campaign.
All the reboots and 10-point plans and canned stump speeches won’t change that basic fact.
Any message put in the mouth of a candidate by consultants who tested it in a focus group is doomed to failure.
The best message is the God’s-honest unvarnished truth told from the heart in plain English.
Because politics is visceral and knowing what it takes to win, and lead comes from the gut — not the head.
And not from high priced consultants.
Just ask Donald Trump who has the best consultant in America.
Himself.
As The Washington Post said about Dukakis in 1988, DeSantis "has a wonderful story to tell, but no capacity to tell it."
And lacking that capacity could prove fatal before the first votes are even cast on a wintry Iowa night next January.
Patrick Dorinson is a writer and commentator who has worked in the political arena as a participant and observer for 35 years-plus. He as been a columnist for the Fox News.com Opinion section. For eight years he hosted his own radio show, "The Cowboy Libertarian" on iHeart media. Patrick currently can be seen as a guest on numerous shows on Newsmax TV. Usually you’ll find him riding "Beamer," his horse. Patrick Dorinson's Reports — Here.
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