Business Legal Watch: The Never Back Down Super PAC - and the controlled demolition of Ron DeSantis

Never Back Down is a Super PAC that has been responsible for the majority of Ron DeSantis' campaign for President of the United States during the 2024 campaign season. It is largely made up of never-Trump donors and cash. And here is why that is a problem...

Never Back Down has been running Ron DeSantis' campaign. Super PACs aren't supposed to run campaigns. A Super PAC can hold events and invite speakers, but when 90% of your speakers are the candidate and every event is centered around only him, the FEC is going to start asking questions.

Okay so what the fuck is this thread? Just catalog stuff here. This thread is a slow burn. A year from now may tell a different tale. I expect this will blow up into a larger, stickier issue in due time. The political machine will not and does not want to put up with Super PACs running the show... and neither do you. So sit back and watch.

This week we've seen more high level staff bailing:

• Their interim campaign manager had her job for two days before getting sacked... after replacing her predecessor that had the job for a week.
• The Haley campaign is touting that they've shifted Koch (Americans for Prosperity Action) fundraising over to them.

But even if it all folds tomorrow, the malfeasance already happened.

The Washington Post seems to know something is up because they laid it out pretty clearly in this article from two days ago:

Never Back Down, which as a super PAC can raise unlimited donations, has played an unusually large role in DeSantis’s White House bid, taking over activities traditionally handled by campaigns, such as field organizing. Initially funded with more than $80 million left over from DeSantis’s gubernatorial reelection bid, it built a massive door-knocking program, hosted many of DeSantis’s events, and even took on some of the cost of his private plane travel.

Emphasis added by me.

The behavior of Never Back Down has already gotten the attention of people in the system and that ball has started to roll. Let's see where it goes.

 

[LurkTrawl]

If you're interested, they have a new campaign ad.

 

[AeroGavin Rossdale]

Huh. The guys they've hired to run the twitter campaign are quite the interesting (retarded) bunch. Like to see a break down of the donors and spending released in a legal document, if only to satisfy my own curiosity on who the fuck is calling the shots. Any indication this will lead anywhere or just the turbulence of a campaign that realized it fucked up?

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

Any indication this will lead anywhere or just the turbulence of a campaign that realized it fucked up?

So far I only see this being discussed by politicos and the "inside baseball" types. Offloading a campaign to a Super PAC was always an academic sort of discussion. But the Federal Election Commission has deemed that Super PACs coordinating directly with a campaign is a violation of campaign finance laws.

Here's the fun part! There is an example of this sort of violation. And it is recent... and from Florida... and involved Rick Scott, Ron DeSantis' predecessor. Check it out!

I have full expectation that this will become a larger issue because the problem is not partisan and because it involves violations of government rules about money. It will not be a sexy issue unless they bend it to further indict DeSantis in the court of public opinion and they probably won't delve into it until after DeSantis drops.

 

[Romulus augustulus]

Been waiting for more people to notice this. Man, Desantis seemed like he ran a tight ship in florida but now at the national level its a disaster. what a fall from grace he had.

 

[Megaton Punch]

Super PACs aren't supposed to run campaigns.

Super PACs are literally running the entire country at every level right now. They're not supposed to, but they do. And no politician will ever do anything about it because they're where all the money is.

 

[make_it_so]

Been waiting for more people to notice this. Man, Desantis seemed like he ran a tight ship in florida but now at the national level its a disaster. what a fall from grace he had.

This is the story almost every single rising Republican "superstar" since 2008. Rather than build up their own strong profiles and warchests for future runs and success, they always listen to the wormtongued GOP consultant-class hacks to abandon the current jobs they're getting high accolades for and jump for the big seat - only to immediately crash and burn, their reputations ruined forever. And the "superstars" are always proving to be big enough dipshits to fall for it - whether that be to jump in as a running mate to help save an obviously doomed campaign (Palin in 08') or start their own premature run as the designated successor to a popular frontrunner (DeSantis in 23'), it always ends in disaster for everyone, except of course for the consultant-class parasites that wind up getting paid millions regardless of the outcome.

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

And no politician will ever do anything about it because they're where all the money is.

I agree with the first part but I disagree with this part. While I do think there is a chance that this gets buried or ignored, I'm not convinced.

This is one of those weird sorts of issues where at a glance it would be easy to say that nothing will be done. But it grabs the attention of all the wrong kinds of people from the point of view of a crook trying to hide their deception.

Hey we'll see what happens. I'm hoping though!

Been waiting for more people to notice this. Man, Desantis seemed like he ran a tight ship in florida but now at the national level its a disaster. what a fall from grace he had.

I am of the opinion that DeSantis was led by his hubris and ultimately set up. Users here knew it was doomed before the campaign started. Politicos knew. The people setting up DeSantis knew.

Ron didn't know. He was set up to run, drove a wedge between himself and the Trump wing of the party, fail to get the nomination and then return to Florida with no gains and as a damaged politician. DeSantis now faces a hostile state GOP because he neglected Florida for so long to play president.

DeSantis walked into a woodchipper that couldn't have been more obvious. And then if his campaign gets nailed by the FEC? Talk about a self-own.

 

[AeroGavin Rossdale]

I have full expectation that this will become a larger issue because the problem is not partisan and because it involves violations of government rules about money. It will not be a sexy issue unless they bend it to further indict DeSantis in the court of public opinion and they probably won't delve into it until after DeSantis drops.

Well, while we wait and since I have them saved, let's take a look at what the potential breach of campaign finance law buys and why this PAC is failing. Yesterday, Fox host Lawrence Jones hosted a meeting in a diner for Fox viewers and interviewed them on who they were voting for. Not surprisingly, they all or mostly said Trump. Kaidan Free, retarded diversity hire and grifter put his double digit IQ to work and noticed something.

No one had food! This was a coordinated stunt bought and paid for by the Trump campaign! Somehow, Jones got word of this accusation and explained they've been doing it for years, clearly states they advertise heavily it as chance to talk to their viewers and DeSantis had been on last week and would be on again next. Kalidan argues this is deceptive, because he thought it was a random diner the guy just walked into. Jones asks if he's fucking retarded and reminds him that they heavily advertise these things on air, on social media, and at local business before hand as a meet up for Fox viewers.

Kaidan had a choice, admit he was wrong, delete his posts and move on.. or be a nigger and escalate the situation.


This has now blown up enough to attract attention from the rest of the campaign. Remember, Jones is a guy who platforms their candidate regularly and will be doing so again in a week. Be really stupid to send in everyone to attack him and look like deranged lunatics, no?

Spoiler: Well

And this is a normal week for these guys. If federal law was violated for this..

Edit: Should have put this in for posterity to show the link. Here's the same guy, just hours later having a cutesy moment sharing sassy gifs with Christina Pushaw, Rob's Rapid Response Director.

 

[Sithis]

DeSantoids are some of the most rabid fuckers on X I swear. They will go meltdown mode on anyone, even allies, at the slightest perceived slight. I remain convinced that Pushaw has helped some other faction drive DeSantis' campaign into the ground, the hohol spook has been his right hand ho ever since he started going national and has been the most consistent figure around him.

 

[BootlegPopeye]

DeSantoids are some of the most rabid fuckers on X I swear. They will go meltdown mode on anyone, even allies, at the slightest perceived slight. I remain convinced that Pushaw has helped some other faction drive DeSantis' campaign into the ground, the hohol spook has been his right hand ho ever since he started going national and has been the most consistent figure around him.

Pushaw had meatball's retard shill army going on twitter by the summer of 2021 too, managed to alienate me totally all the way back then. "Kaladin" is one the scummiest meatballbots though, he has posted things like wishing for Trump to die, celebrated every legal setback, etc.

They all follow the same nitpicky-cunt script too, it's boring and pointless to debate them.

 

[AeroGavin Rossdale]

I remain convinced that Pushaw has helped some other faction drive DeSantis' campaign into the ground

Sabotage is the only real plausible explanation, but even then someone would have had to brought it up to Meatball himself. Seriously, the IT guy for a county chairman knows campaigning better than this and would put a stop to it. Who's in charge? Are the tin foil hat theories about Ron's wife acting like a Roman Empire power player right?

He was set up to run, drove a wedge between himself and the Trump wing of the party, fail to get the nomination and then return to Florida with no gains and as a damaged politician

Okay, this my tin foil hat theory. I don't think he was intentionally set up to fail. I think a guy with massive pockets and two brain cells was convinced that people were tired of Trump, the indictments would sink him, and Ron could just pick up the pieces.

That person being Ken Griffin. CEO of Citadel, GOP megadonor, avowed Trump hater. Griffin moved himself and his 60 billion dollar company from Chicago to Miami in the middle of the 2022 election. What drove him from Illinois? Well, Ken, having no political instincts invested millions in Republican primary candidate Rich Irvin. Irvin was a retarded choice but 50 million to down ballot races pretty much paralyzed the IL GOP until it was too late to establish any plan and they promptly got crushed at a time when Democrat popularity was at a historic low. (this is the source of my personal autistic hatred for these people) After that incident, he fled to Florida and threw his money behind Rob. I think they really thought they had the money and environment to replace Trump and were shocked to find out voters disagreed.

My proof for this and what got me paying attention to Florida was stumbling across this tweet from early DeSantis fan boy and 'Serious political commentator" Dave Reboi, claiming he has no clue who the guy who just moved 60 Billion into Miami and made the largest cash donation in GOP history to Rob's reelection campaign is.

 

[CHARizard]

Whoever tricked DeSantis into running for 2024 should never work in politics again. The guy was doing good work in Florida, hes young, he could have waited for 2028 and had a clear shot.

 

[Romulus augustulus]

Are the tin foil hat theories about Ron's wife acting like a Roman Empire power player right?

Livia or Zenobia?

 

[AeroGavin Rossdale]

Livia or Zenobia?

Galadriel if she took the Ring, honestly. The whole theory is she runs the social media based on them being even more touchy than usual about her, praising her to high heaven every time she's in an ad. and even occasionally mentioning she should be in more ads. Roger Stone called her a cunt and they melted down for a week. It was great, they demanded every news agency in the country defend her honor as a beautiful amazing mother and First Lady or face a reckoning. It gets a bit weird at times and would explain why she isn't fired. Makes as much sense as anything. But then again who knows why they do anything. Today they're pretending they're all huge Calvin Coolidge marks who erupt into Rapturous Joy at the mention of his name. Is this outsider art or something? What Coolidge stans are they trying to win over? God, I want one of these losers to write a tell all.

 

[Sweeter and Savoury]

PAC's and Super-PAC's are nothing more then a end run around the campaign laws.

They should be outlawed and pol's caught taking money from them should be charged with accepting bribes.

 

[Seafarer]

“Never back down”? More like “Be an annoying faggot and not shut up, ever”.

 

[AeroGavin Rossdale]

Fun weekend for Never Back Down. Friday on Fox News Rob was on with his wife to promote Casey's new pet project, 'Moms for DeSantis' or something. During a call for out of state voters to flood Iowa to volunteer, Casey made the statement "You don't have to be an Iowa resident to participate in the Iowa caucus". But because Iowa is a caucus and not a vote and caucases are dumb, 'participate' is the exact wording the IA GOP uses for 'voting', causing Iowa to release a statement calling this false. All in all who cares, put out a clarifying statement, say you meant volunteers, move on.
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But NBD won't miss chance to alienate allies, put out gaslighting attempts over something that would have faded over the weekend, be insufferable faggots, and fuel the speculation that Casey is in charge and they're paid to defend her honor.
Firstly, they're going to pretend the live interview on Fox that started this never happened and bust out the community notes (A favorite tactic) to redirect to a tweet Casey made afterwords and accusing people of lying about what anyone can watch with their own eyes. In fact, Trump, the GOP and the Media worked together to smear this wonderful lady. By airing her own words, I guess.

Why yes, that is Pedro Gonzalez, former Marxist Bernie Bro turned MAGA turned anti-Trump principled conservative grifter. The tweet being mentioned is from U.S. Representative Greg Stuebe, R-FL. The kinda people Ron needs to work with to win anything. This is what I mean by how strangely defensive they are about Casey, look how viscous they get over light ribbing.

This guy, Max Twain got assigned the character of 'informed insider'. So he's gonna confirm with his sources that a Florida rep, Donald Trump and Laura Loomer sit around all day making fun of Madame Casey's cancer. In fact, drag in another rep who hasn't even said anything about it, just because he's pro-Trump. Why not.

Someone writes a bog standard campaign tweet about it? Accuse him of being a relapsed alcoholic.

The Iowa GOP had to put out a statement clarifying their rules because your guy's wife misspoke? It's a conspiracy! Accuse the head of the IA GOP of using it as a personal attack.

Some guy states the obvious that he doesn't get why they did this? Don't use the opportunity to promote the thing that started all this, just call him a scumbag.


And that's just what I got from one guys feed. Nasty people, folks. I'm now really on the side that if Casey isn't running this thing, they at least have orders to avenge any perceived slight against her no matter what.

 

[Romulus augustulus]

Fun weekend for Never Back Down. Friday on Fox News Rob was on with his wife to promote Casey's new pet project, 'Moms for DeSantis' or something. During a call for out of state voters to flood Iowa to volunteer, Casey made the statement "You don't have to be an Iowa resident to participate in the Iowa caucus". But because Iowa is a caucus and not a vote and caucases are dumb, 'participate' is the exact wording the IA GOP uses for 'voting', causing Iowa to release a statement calling this false. All in all who cares, put out a clarifying statement, say you meant volunteers, move on.

they're really doing the scummy Iowa fraud Cruz (?) did to ben carson again aren't they? except now the front runner is 32 points ahead. whats the point?

 

[AeroGavin Rossdale]

Cruz (?)

It was Cruz. His campaign manager was Jeff Roe. Jeff is now the CEO of a consulting firm named Axios while also inked as a consultant for Never Back Down. It's not going well. But that Vanity Fair article does state that cracks had formed over Casey's unasked for strategy advise. So that's one more suspect to add in the list of 'Who is responsible for this fuck up?'

Edit: As for 'why', I would guess because Cruz did win Iowa, and Ron desperately needs to come out of Iowa with at least a close second.