Winner and Loser of the Week in Florida politics — Week of 7.16.23

Ron DeSantis’ team appears insistent on pushing the limits of artificial intelligence-generated content in campaign ads, a bold move for a party that has railed against “fake news” for years.

Got ethical concerns of fake images or faked audio being used in a political campaign ad? DeSantis’ super PAC could not care less.

That appears to be the message after the super PAC, Never Back Down, used an AI-generated voice of Donald Trump in a new ad. This is after DeSantis’ team previously posted an attack on Trump using AI-generated images of Trump embracing Anthony Fauci.

DeSantis supporters may try to rebut any criticism of their latest AI-aided ad, which features Trump trashing popular Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Trump endorsed Reynolds in the past, and thinks she owes it to him to return the favor. But Reynolds, like many Republicans, has stayed out of endorsing in the Primary and has (gasp!) even attended events with DeSantis and other GOP presidential contenders.

So Trump put out a written statement on Truth Social bashing Reynolds. The DeSantis super PAC then took those written words, plugged them into a (frankly, below average) voice generator powered by AI and made it sound as if Trump had spoken those words.

Obviously, hearing something in an ad is more effective than just plastering text from the Truth Social post on the screen. But are we not going to take a second to assess whether this is kosher?

Trump did not speak those words. Yes, he technically said them. But the more AI gets wedged in on these edge cases and normalized, the more we will normalize taking another step or two forward into the void. It will be a frog in a boiling pot of water scenario, and at some point we’ll have constant content made up out of whole cloth and it will be too late to put the genie back in the bottle.

If candidates can’t regulate themselves, maybe Congress needs to step in. Until then, it’s likely we’ll be getting more of this stuff in this cycle.

Now, it’s on to our weekly game of winners and losers.

Winners

Honorable mention: DeSantis. Putting those ethical dilemmas aside, DeSantis did make an important move this week in seeking to resuscitate his struggling campaign: he gave up his always-foolish posture of ignoring any non-sycophantic media and appeared on CNN for an interview with Jake Tapper.

The move earned him some praise, and is part of an attempted campaign reset as DeSantis’ poll numbers remain low. But even leaving aside all that, the move is a necessary and healthy one that can both allow DeSantis to grow as a politician (by getting him outside the GOP echo chamber) and help non-DeSantis fans hear him in his own words.

Our partisan media echo chambers are doing a huge disservice to political discourse in this country, so it’s always a good sign when political leaders get outside their bubbles and speak to new audiences (well, almost always).

As for DeSantis’ “reset”? Color us skeptical for now. A poll just showed Vivek Ramaswamy climbing to tie DeSantis to second place nationally. He’s still got plenty of polling problems — especially with women — and is still leaning into culture war nonsense like laughably suing Bud Light’s parent company.

So there are still many, many problems his campaign needs to solve. Appearing on CNN one time isn’t enough. But if he wants to climb out of this hole, he’s going to need to do stuff like this to appeal to a wider audience.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Chris Korge. Korge, a longtime Democratic power player based out of Coral Gables, is the new Finance Chair of the Biden Victory Fund. That group will serve as the joint fundraising arm of President Joe Biden’s re-election bid.

Korge has served in a similar role with the Democratic National Committee, and has worked on previous presidential campaigns, bringing experience as Biden faces an uncertain electorate heading into 2024.

“Our campaign is off to a strong start, securing early endorsements and unified support from across the Biden-Harris coalition, and a historic quarter for our fundraising operation,” Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement, also announcing Cedric Richmond and Rufus Gifford coming on in other key roles.

“Bringing in these trusted and known leaders that have strong and proven records of helping win presidential campaigns sends a clear signal to the American people that we continue to build out a powerhouse campaign leadership team that knows what it will take to win in November 2024.”

Korge’s presidential race experience on the Democratic side dates back to Bill Clinton’s first win in 1992. Yes, recent polling has been kind to Biden given Trump’s mounting legal troubles. But a second term is far from assured, and Biden would be well advised to bring on more experienced vets like Korge.

The biggest winner: Christian Ziegler. The Republican Party of Florida has now gained a voter registration advantage topping 500,000 over the Democrats — 541,798, to be exact. That’s according to the latest Florida Division of Elections data.

Ziegler has been aggressive in touting the increasing voter advantage during his tenure as Party Chair. The party’s growing dominance helped propel Republicans to record wins in 2022, though they fell short in a recent highly watched local election in Jacksonville.

There are some caveats here. First, some of the added GOP voters might be caused by individuals who were registered as Democrats for decades, back when the parties looked a bit different, finally deciding to swap their official party affiliation, even though they may have been voting GOP for some time.

That’s likely not the main driving factor here, as Gov. DeSantis has clearly tapped into something in Florida that has encouraged high enthusiasm and many out-of-staters to relocate here. But it’s worth a mention only to note not to read the changes only as a widespread abandonment of the Florida Democratic Party. After all, the Democrats did just fine in that aforementioned Jacksonville contest.

Ziegler also doesn’t deserve all the credit here, as this shift from a Democratic Party registration advantage to a GOP one began under his predecessor, Sen. Joe Gruters.

But Ziegler has certainly kept the momentum going, and there are not yet any signs that the GOP advantage will stop growing.

That puts Ziegler in prime position to oversee strong Republican performances in the years ahead, including in next year’s highly watched Presidential Election. And until the Democrats prove they can get their act together for a sustained period of time, Ziegler will likely have plenty more to gloat about.

Losers

Dishonorable mention: Civility. We are, of course, not living in the most civil political era. But normal squabbles and name-calling pale in comparison to the fact that someone shot a bullet into the home of a sitting lawmaker this week.

Republican Rep. Spencer Roach reported the incident on Thursday. By Friday, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office had found the bullet, which they pulled out of Roach’s wall.

“I have a hard time believing it was accidental,” Roach said. “There are 30 houses on my street. Only one got a bullet hole. So, I have to assume it was intentional. I’ll let the Sheriffs conduct their investigation.”

As of this writing, there is no information about who may have been behind the shooting. And maybe it was an accident. But that merely moves this from a conversation about being more civil in our politics to one about being civil enough that you don’t accidentally shoot a bullet through a random person’s home.

If this did have a political motivation, it’s another frightening sign that people are losing their ability to deal with disagreements through normal channels and instead are resorting to violence or intimidation.

We’ve been critical of the Republican-controlled government when warranted, and the minority party has also gotten a fair bit of criticism here. But sharing one’s opinions in the public square, along with voting, campaigning, donating, etc. are the ways in which to express your disagreement.

We are grateful Rep. Roach is OK and that no one was hurt here. Hopefully investigators can determine who did this and will respond appropriately. And please, don’t upend someone’s life because of your political disagreements, no matter how justified you think you are.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Trump. The former President got hit with a target letter in the investigation into his conduct ahead of, and during, the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

Trump hasn’t been charged as of this writing, but those types of letters are often — though not always — followed by charges.

On top of that, Trump’s team appears to be unaware of who exactly is cooperating with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into his actions that day. Trump’s camp had apparently hoped Trump would dodge an indictment, but that ship may have sailed.

This just adds to the pile of legal troubles Trump is already facing.

Previous legal entanglements have, so far, appeared to help Trump in the polls. But as more information comes out and a flood of charges could continue to pour in, it’s possible enough GOP voters tire of the drama and decide to move forward with a new nominee.

As for Jan. 6, describing it as an “insurrection” has always been a bit of an overstatement. That implies individuals stormed the Capitol with at least some semblance of a plan to take over the government. And the aimless meandering and haphazardness of those who entered the Capitol seems to pretty clearly show they had no real plan for what to do once inside.

But this definitely was a riot, and a violent one. And it could have been far, far worse than what it was. Trump defenders can point to him making token comments about wanting attendees to march peacefully. But that ignores the months and months of him egging people on, riling them up and convincing them that shady figures had stolen the election from him.

It was always BS, and still is. And Chris Christie summed it up well this week. As on Newsmax by a skeptical host in Eric Bolling whether Christie thought Trump really wanted a violent insurrection, Christie put it this way:

“Quite frankly, I don’t think he cared one way or the other, Eric,” Christie said. “I think what he wanted was to stay in office and I don’t think he cared one way or the other what was going to happen.”

Exactly. That may not be enough for charges to stick, but it’s more than enough to show that this man cares too much about his own well-being to ever be a great leader.

As for the potential charges, we still don’t know what’s up Smith’s sleeve. If Trump did work with acolytes behind the scenes to push for chaos that day, then it could move his actions from shameful to potentially criminal.

The biggest loser: Florida’s Black history curriculum. Florida’s Black history curriculum for middle schoolers will now contain this designation, per the Florida Board of Education: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

Perhaps next we should teach how Jim Jones provided massive earned media opportunities for Flavor Aid, or how the Titanic allowed passengers to get some much-needed laps in.

The language also includes this note when teaching about the Ocoee Massacre, one of the worst race-related acts of violence in U.S. history: “Instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.”

Yes, it’s a shame all of these Black people were unjustly murdered because a Black man tried to vote, but hey Black people have done bad stuff too HeyLookOverThereASquirrel!!!

Gov. DeSantis and his loyal foot soldiers in the Legislature have made it loud and clear that they don’t want Florida’s students to be taught to hate other races because of past sins.

But here is a message that hopefully can get through to the Governor: The way to avoid that is not to twist Florida’s curriculum into knots teaching that slavery actually wasn’t all that bad, or playing into false equivalency when discussing racial violence. The way to do that is to teach these horrible, hateful events, call them what they are, and teach children to be better than those who perpetrated them.

Given DeSantis’ reaction to the controversy, he appears unwilling to reconsider here.

We have offered defenses when Democrats have overstated DeSantis’ anti-“woke” education changes by calling him a White nationalist or asserting that all teaching of slavery would be banned in Florida.

So this is not about repeatedly jumping down Republicans’ throats. But these recent updates are just utterly absurd. And part of the reason we’ve cautioned Democrats not to overstate the case is that, with changes like this, people may now dismiss reports about them as exaggerations.

No, these controversial additions are not the entirety of the slavery curriculum. And plenty of ugly truths will still be taught. But wedging these qualifiers in just screams of an effort to tamp down the horror of these events just to fire another shot in the culture war.

And when the Board of Education attempted to respond to the outcry by pointing to a list of 16 individuals who purportedly developed skills as salves that they used later in life, historians responded by pointing out that several people on that list were never even slaves. Some, like Booker T. Washington, was freed at 9 years old and learned through paid work and schooling.

That just shows, even if it’s not meant to be the primary focus of the slavery curriculum, how sloppily these changes were added.

Republicans have turned critical race theory into an all-encompassing boogeyman used to describe any lesson that could, in essence, make White people look bad and possibly encourage anger to be directed at White people for past violence or discrimination. If this is their answer, this is more ridiculous than any boogeyman they’ve ever concocted.