Advisors for one of Florida’s multitude of GOP presidential candidates pushed Governor Ron DeSantis to focus his attacks during the upcoming debate on upstart political dilettante Vivek Ramaswamy, who has overtaken DeSantis in some polls, while scrupulously avoiding attacking Donald Trump, the New York Times reports.

The memo by Axiom Consultants, one in a series of “debate research” papers prepared by the company focusing on DeSantis’s strategy toward individual candidates, says DeSantis must stress “four basic must-dos” in the debate, scheduled for next Wednesday:  “1. Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times. 2. State GRD’s [Governor Ron DeSantis] positive vision 2-3 times. 3. Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy in a response. 4. Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack.”

The goal, apparently, is to avoid attacking Trump directly:  instead of going after the frontrunner directly, the advisors say DeSantis should be more smarmy to Trump, who is not scheduled to attend the debate and is instead anticipated to turn himself into Fulton County, Georgia officials on RICO charges.

The memo suggested a specific script for a number of pretend-impromptu comebacks to fend off attacks.  For example, to respond to a Christie attack on Trump, DeSantis was instructed to respond, “Trump isn’t here, so let’s just leave him alone. He’s too weak to defend himself here. We’re all running against him. I don’t think we want to join forces with someone on this stage who’s auditioning for a show on MSNBC.”