Oh, so it’s Rupert Murdoch who's paying Ron for his new book deal.

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Previously billionaire Rupert Murdoch paid Megyn Kelly, through advances on her book deal, $10 million for her political efforts in 2015 and 2016. Rupert Murdoch owns Harper Collins book publishing.

Book publishing, as done by politicians in both parties, is the way money is laundered to candidates and various campaign finance rules are subverted. Nikki Haley, Kristi Noem, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and Tim Scott have all released books in the past two months in advance of their 2024 presidential bids.

As noted recently by The Guardian, “Lachlan Murdoch, the heir apparent and eldest son, who co-chairs News Corp and runs the parent company of Fox News, has reportedly told DeSantis that the group would back him if he ran in the next election. “Lachlan has been keen on Ron for some time. He’s viewed within the organization as a sanitized version of Donald.”

Candidates are personally financed by the book publication laundry system through advances, typically several million, and then again indirectly by supporting organizations through mass purchasing. It is not uncommon to find hundreds-of-thousands of books in various warehouses purchased by groups as indirect contributions to boost the candidate of their choice. The purchases determine the “best seller” rankings.

It is unknown how much billionaire Rupert Murdoch has paid Ron DeSantis for the 2024 campaign but considering the stakes for this election cycle it’s likely in the $20 million range.



As we have chronicled since July, the decision for Ron DeSantis to enter the 2024 contest was made before the spring of 2022, everything thereafter has been a grand game of position and pretense. The seeds for the effort were laid even earlier in February when the DeSantis team reached out to “conservative influencers” to form the alignment for the August ’22 shift and branding campaign.

According to the most visible and predictable roadmap, DeSantis will likely be held back from an official announcement until later in 2023.

The problem for DeSantis handlers is that when the announcement is made all pretenses will be dropped and many people will review the landscape in hindsight and see the roadmap.

A combination of pretending, deflection and obfuscation is the management team’s #1 priority right now to avoid the Florida voter anger about being duped on DeSantis intention. However, they do have to follow the timeline of the script if they want to try and maintain the campaign momentum.

By design, Governor Ron DeSantis will almost certainly be the last candidate to enter the 2024 race, sometime late summer. The entry will depend on their success in keeping him in the spotlight and headlines without ‘officially’ looking like they are trying to keep him in the spotlight and headlines. Fox News will play a key role in keeping DeSantis spotlighted.

Everything is being carefully managed; however, when you know the script, and know where the tripwires are located, it’s very easy to see it playing out.

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