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How to Take Down Ron DeSantis

July 20, 2022 · 11:59 am ET · Leave a Comment

Democratic strategist Lis Smith on the Inside the Hive podcast:

“So if I’m on a Democratic campaign, and we’re concerned about him coming out of a primary, the good news is this: There’s a very, very vibrant, right-wing news ecosystem. And so what I would try to do is try to launder stories through there—Breitbart, Fox, Newsmax, Daily Wire, Daily Caller, Free Beacon, those sorts of sites. Because I think what we’ve seen increasingly is that those types of sites are less likely to pick up from mainstream media.”

“If you get a negative story about DeSantis in the Washington Post, or New York Times, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, that might have been seen as the ultimate coup. But today, if you really want something to take root, and especially among Republican primary voters, I would go straight to the right. I’m sure that there are things from his time as governor that would put him at odds with the Republican base.”

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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.

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