New DeSantis Campaign Manager Fumbles the Handoff

As this site broke in an exclusive report last week, the floundering DeSantis campaign replaced its highly criticized campaign manager, Generra Peck, with the Florida governor’s chief of staff, James Uthmeier.

Peck had been riding high after managing the governor’s 2022 reelection campaign, which he won by nearly 20%. Although she deserves some credit for that, the reality is — based on the governor’s popularity across the state at the time — if he had no campaign manager at all, Ron DeSantis still would have cruised to a huge victory.

But, as is often said, running a mayoral or gubernatorial campaign is the “minor league” of politics. Stepping up to a presidential campaign puts you in the “major league.” Evidently, a few of DeSantis’s advisers and campaign donors felt Peck was not up to the task. But, will the switch be akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

Uthmeier, a 35-year-old attorney, is a rising star in some conservative circles and recognized as one of the architects behind the governor’s tough pushback against COVID lockdowns, mask mandates, and private business vaccine passports. These pandemic-related policies made DeSantis wildly popular with millions of voters in Florida and across the nation. It’s safe to say that without those policies, there would be no DeSantis presidential campaign today. 

But Uthmeier has no experience with a presidential campaign — and it was evident in the written statement he gave to The Messenger: 

“People have written Governor DeSantis’s obituary many times. From his race against establishment primary candidate Adam Putnam, to his victory over legacy media-favored candidate Andrew Gillum [in 2018], to his twenty point win over Charlie Crist [in 2022], Governor DeSantis has proven that he knows how to win. He’s breaking records on fundraising and has a supporting super PAC with $100 million in the bank and an incredible ground game. Get ready.” 

Really? That sounds like someone who doesn’t have a clue.

First of all, DeSantis would not have beaten Putnam in the Republican primary, and then beaten Gillum by two-tenths of a percent in the general election, were it not for the endorsement from then-President Donald Trump.  

Second, no one cares about bumper-sticker political platitudes about how good DeSantis is at raising money — least of all working-class voters who have other things to worry about when it comes to money. They’re not paying attention to such “inside baseball” scorekeeping.

What might get their attention, however, are the news stories about the millions of donated dollars that DeSantis apparently wasted on massive overhead and strategic mistakes before cutting his campaign staff.  Introducing himself via a boiler-plate statement was a bad first impression for Uthmeier to make.

As one who has had some experience on three winning Republican presidential campaigns — George H.W. Bush in 1988 and George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 — I would offer this advice to Uthmeier: Never let your boss do pre-recorded interviews with the mainstream media. Do live interviews only, because recorded interviews will be edited to take things out of context and the line of questioning will be pointed, to try to catch the candidate off guard.

As an example, in a recent interview aired on NBC News, the correspondent asked DeSantis: “Yes or no, did Trump lose the 2020 election?”

Now, perhaps it was a lack of coaching, but instead of dodging the question or pushing back, DeSantis appeared momentarily stunned before stammering out: “Well, of course — no, of course he lost. … I don’t think it was a good-run election.”

“Good-run”? The score: NBC News, 1 — DeSantis, 0.

That shaky performance is precisely what makes some DeSantis supporters nervous. And for those who argue that, in his defense, his staff did not prepare DeSantis well enough, I’d even say “Baloney!” DeSantis is running for President of the United States. He should know his own mind by now, and how to articulate his vision for the nation without falling back on talking points. He has to know when he is being set up and how to talk with reporters. 

As I’ve said before, the DeSantis campaign has made rookie mistakes. Can Uthmeier right the ship? Time will soon tell. Uthmeier and his boss need to have an honest discussion that moves them away from attacking Trump, offering hackneyed phrases as policy proposals, and talking endlessly about how DeSantis “saved Florida” from COVID, or how much money his political action committee has raised.

Many Americans, myself included, thought DeSantis should have waited until Trump was off the presidential stage to run, in 2028. But here he is — and time is quickly running out for him to connect with voters in a personal and lasting way. DeSantis can switch his campaign manager but ultimately, this is all on him. As it should be.

Douglas MacKinnon served in the White House as a writer for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and afterward in a joint command at the Pentagon.