This general concept is smart. It’s going to be really hard if not downright impossible to move more than maybe 30 percent of people currently saying they’ll back Trump in a primary off of him. The only argument I’ve found works at all is age and infirmity and it only works when the target voter is presented with visual evidence of Trump acting like, well, Joe Biden.

But as with everything Ron DeSantis does, this is likely to prove to be a mixed bag and the campaign will only execute on this initiative at a B- level. That’s not going to do it because a) we’re past the point where I think DeSantis can turn this around and beat Trump anyway but b) for him to have positioned himself to do so earlier in the primary, he needed to be executing on an A-grade— not A+, but A— level, and doing it consistently. The whole campaign has been B-. This will be, too. Here’s why.

[I wonder how much of this is really at B- level, and how much of it is mainstream media spinning a narrative of the B-. Not that DeSantis has been perfect, mind you, but as Mickey Kaus pointed out on Twitter, the media’s tendency to shred leadiing Republicans has stopped being subtle or deniable these days. I suspect that is the actual obstacle to overcome, and DeSantis hasn’t been able to do it thus far. — Ed]