ROGER KIMBALL: A disastrous DeSantis 2024 ‘launch’ on Twitter Spaces.

Free tickets to Disney World: maybe that’s what Ron the aspiring Don should give to the clever staffer who thought of having him announce his candidacy for POTUS on Twitter Spaces.

It was only the official announcement, of course. But having him unfold the bulletin on Twitter Spaces, in an unscripted chat with Elon Musk, was supposed to transform a rote, ho-hum, so-what-I-already-knew-that non-event into a media happening. When I last checked, Tucker Carlson’s “We’re Back” Twitter clip had garnered more than 132 million views (take that, Fox). How did Ron do?

From where I and some friends sat, it was more or less like the Thresher’s final voyage. Or maybe like one of SpaceX’s rapid unscheduled disassemblies. Some words from Elon and co-host David Sacks. Elsewhere on Spaces someone opined that this was the funeral for the “corporate press.” Then came the deep dive. Garbled sounds. Elon said that so many people were on that the servers were melting. Bang. Static. Nothing.

It couldn’t have been too disastrous: Desantis Campaign Says It Raised $8.2 Million in First 24 Hours: “The $8.2 million brought in by Mr. DeSantis far outpaces how Mr. Trump began his 2024 fund-raising in late 2022. Mr. Trump had raised about $9.5 million in the six weeks after he announced his campaign in mid-November.”