A pair of longtime Republican operatives heaped dirt on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign, which they deemed the "worst in history" in a scathing analysis published by Politico.
In their essay, Curt Anderson and Alex Castellanos marveled at the way DeSantis raised vast sums of money only to see it squandered as the Florida governor finished 30 percentage points behind former President Donald Trump in the Iowa caucus.
In particular, they criticize DeSantis for trying to imitate Trump when there is simply no way he could match the former president's ability to work a crowd.
"Any candidate who tries to imitate Trump will fail," they said. "There is no one like The Donald. Plagiarized reproductions will always be sniffed out and discarded as inauthentic pretenders."
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The strategists rubbed further salt in the wound a few paragraphs later by arguing that "to the campaign’s surprise, the message that 'I’m just like Trump, but awkward, shorter and less interesting' did not seem to catch" among Republican primary voters.
They also said that the DeSantis campaign's decision to be associated with strategist Jeff Roe was a massive mistake given his track record.
"The celebrity consultant known as Jeff Roe loses virtually every race he touches and, according to his own boasts, makes mad money in the process," they contended. "His string of losses in Senate races over the past few years distinguishes him: Adam Laxalt (Nevada), Carla Sands (Pennsylvania), Dave McCormick (Pennsylvania), Jim Lamon (Arizona), Josh Mandel (Ohio) and Martha McSally (Arizona, twice)."
