Extra, Extra: Mayors of Nowheresville, South Carolina, endorse Ron DeSantis

The presidential campaign for Gov. Ron DeSantis distributed a press release touting “35 new endorsements from South Carolina legislators, local leaders.”

The press release headline, paired with the actual content of the press release and its unfortunate timing, paints yet another troubling picture for the flailing DeSantis campaign that has failed so far to make any headway in a GOP Primary dominated by the nation’s former Commander-in-Chief.

Upon reading the headline, my immediate assumption, which was no doubt the intent, was that there would be a relatively equal number of lawmakers and local leaders on the list of new endorsements. Given the order of words in the headline — placing “legislators” ahead of “local leaders” — it was even reasonable to assume there would be more lawmakers on the list than, say, Clerks of Court or small-town Council members.

On the contrary, the list included just one sitting state legislator and only two former state lawmakers. The rest of the list — that is, 32 of the 35 endorsements — came from low-level local leaders.

Now I’m not saying these individuals don’t have sway. Every vote counts, and local leaders are, indeed, closest to the people. Local surrogates are not foreign to top of the ticket races.

But the fact that the DeSantis camp deceitfully worded its press release to imply the new list of endorsers were higher profile than they were is not a good sign.

Let’s break down the 32 local leaders that made up the overwhelming majority of this latest rollout. With the exception of Aiken, Beaufort, Charleston, Greenville, Dorchester and Richland counties, the endorsers hail from low-population towns and counties where the populations don’t even reach six figures and in many, not even five.

For example, the list includes the Mayor of Inman, a small town outside of Spartanburg with a population of just 3,054. It also includes a council member from Isle of Palms, a coastal town outside of Charleston where the population is just 4,307.

Similarly, a Town Council member and School Board member from the town of Clover are also included. That town, just south of the North Carolina border not far from Charlotte, has a population of just 6,949.

The McCormick County Sheriff endorsed DeSantis. He represents a county of just 9,760. Other endorsements came from Tega Cay (13,278), Barnwell County (20,580), North Augusta (24,675), Edgefield County (26,153), Fort Mill (27,991), Darlington County (62,755) and Laurens County (67,803).

Again, this is not to say small town or rural voters, or the elected leaders they choose, aren’t important parts of any election. But that is not the point. The point is, the campaign positioned its press release as some sort of major announcement when it amounted to a list of electeds mostly unknown among the greater South Carolina populace, relatively speaking.

And they did it on a day when it would get buried anyway.

To anyone who hasn’t been locked in a closet since yesterday evening, the only news that matters today is DeSantis’s chief rival Donald Trump’s highly anticipated (or dreaded) arraignment. It is sucking all of the air out of the room both in and out of politics. And certainly, the only people who would pay attention to low-level endorsements are otherwise occupied with the big Trump news, whether that’s salivating and celebrating or lamenting and digging out the pitchforks and torches.

This is just one of many symptoms in a disease for Team DeSantis.

Before he officially entered the race, DeSantis was seen as Trump but smarter; Trump without the baggage. But what we’ve discovered since that fateful (and botched) campaign rollout on what was then Twitter is a highly flawed candidate who lacks likability, comes across as thin-skinned and who spars with children over icees.

Oh, and if none of that were enough, DeSantis’ desperation has even sunk so low as to get rhetorically violent. Speaking in New Hampshire over the weekend, DeSantis actually said, “we are going to start slitting throats on Day 1.”

Trump famously claimed in his first presidential campaign that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York City and get away with it. Over the past nearly eight years since, he’s showing that might actually be the case, at least among his supporters. If DeSantis thinks he comes with the same immunity, he’s sorely mistaken.

And judging by today’s nonsensical press release, he knows it.