Campaigns need volunteers, not paid stoners

A recent experience that delivered some poor PR for the DeSantis campaign demonstrates the fact that money isn’t the answer to everything in American politics. The pro-DeSantis Super PAC Never Back Down recently issued an offer in several battleground states for canvassers who would be paid upwards of $20 per hour to go door to door distributing campaign literature supporting the Governor’s presidential bid and drumming up support. One unnamed young man in North Carolina landed one of these jobs and donned a DeSantis t-shirt and began making the rounds. Unfortunately, he showed up at one unsupportive neighbor’s house where he was rudely told to get off of the property. Rather than moving on to the next home, the man elected to respond in a crude fashion and remain there while talking on his phone to a friend. He also confessed to being “stoned” and not caring what the neighbor thought. Even more unfortunately for the DeSantis campaign, the homeowner had a Ring doorbell video camera and the encounter quickly went viral. (Newsweek)

A video has emerged online showing a paid-for canvasser for Ron DeSantis‘ 2024 presidential campaign making lewd marks about a potential voter in South Carolina while being “stoned” on the job.

The clip shows an unnamed man wearing a “DeSantis” T-shirt speaking on the phone telling a friend how one person told him to “get off my f******” lawn,” while the canvasser suggested the homeowner should “eat my b****, honestly.”

After laughing for a brief moment, the DeSantis worker adds: “And I’m a little stoned, so I don’t even care.”

Here’s the video. (Language warning)

Team DeSantis and his super pac @NvrBackDown24 recently bragged about their “$100M door knocking operation.”

Here’s a video that a South Carolinian voter released of paid desantis door knocker who showed up at their door and was caught saying “Suck my balls, suck my Harry… pic.twitter.com/ekrGPhd0fF

— Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 (@alexbruesewitz) July 14, 2023

Having run a couple of campaigns myself, I can assure you that there is an important lesson to be learned here. It takes a lot of people to mount a successful campaign, even at the congressional district level. The numbers required for a national race are daunting. But it’s vital to ensure that your army of campaign workers are volunteers to the greatest extent possible. People who are hitting the street on your behalf because they are truly motivated and want to see you win are (almost) never going to act like this.

It’s just as important to have a volunteer coordinator on your staff who has the experience and ability to train your foot soldiers to be as efficient and productive as possible. Sometimes, even the most enthusiastic volunteers can make mistakes if they are new to the campaign trail. That’s one of the first people you need to hire after a seasoned attorney and an accountant who is well-versed in campaign finance laws.

Any time you begin paying people to do work for a campaign, particularly in public-facing roles, you face potential issues. In one of the campaigns I managed back in the day, our primary opponent hired a group to collect signatures for them, paying them based on how many signatures they collected. The workers obviously began forging signatures almost immediately to fatten up their paychecks. Upon inspection by our team, a huge number of the signature sheets were thrown out, the candidate failed to make the ballot, and later faced campaign law violation charges.

As this incident in North Carolina demonstrates, even the seemingly simple act of handing out campaign literature can go pear-shaped when placed in the wrong hands. Every state has laws about the placement of campaign signs and the distribution of literature. Without the proper training, volunteers can wind up getting themselves in trouble and deliver a black eye to the candidate. And people with no personal motivation to see the campaign succeed are all the more likely to go astray.

This entire affair just makes DeSantis and his supporters seem desperate and less than competent. And there may be a reason for that. While there is still plenty of time to go before anyone starts voting in the primary, the latest polling continues to show Donald Trump basically lapping the field. Morning Consult shows Trump well above 50, while DeSantis has actually lost ground, sliding back below 20 (at 17) and beginning to blend in with the rest of the potential also-rans. The only other person even close to double digits is Ramaswamy. If anyone is going to make a serious move on Trump – including DeSantis – they’re going to need to find a way to do so before the days of summer are behind us. Otherwise, this primary may be over before it even begins.