Tara Palmeri: “Some have suggested that DeSantis simply hasn’t spent enough time in the Granite State. After all, he’s going all-in on Iowa—ostensibly following the playbook of ur-consultant Jeff Roe, who runs his nearly $100 million super PAC ‘Never Back Down,’ and executed the same hit-every-county strategy for Ted Cruz in 2016.
The Roe doctrine is actually quite simple: crisscross the first-to-vote caucus state with a far-right, evangelical message, while the super PAC manages a sophisticated ground operation that is advantageous to a caucus. The hope is that a win in Iowa will create just enough momentum for success in New Hampshire.”“Of course, The Roe Doctrine was disproved when Cruz could only leverage his Iowa victory into a third-place finish in New Hampshire. He lost to Trump by 24 points on the night that the former reality TV star effectively separated himself from the field. Cruz, like DeSantis is now, polled at 11 percent, basically tying with Jeb Bush for third/fourth place. There’s a risk that Roe could be vulnerable to the same outcome with his new charge. Genuflecting ever rightward for Iowans—calling for a war at the border, releasing outlandish anti-gay videos, calling Gorsuch and Kavanaugh too liberal—can catch up with a candidate in New England.”