Ron DeSantis is a little weird

And why that's a problem.

(Ron DeSantis, not eating pudding)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was asked — during a visit to Japan Monday — whether he was at all concerned by poll numbers that showed him trailing former President Donald Trump.

“I’m not a candidate so we'll see if and when that changes,” DeSantis said while bugging out his eyes and bobbling his head from side to side.

It was, well, weird. Watch it yourself here.¹

In a vacuum — no big deal! Politicians — especially high profile ones like DeSantis — get asked all sorts of questions and, every once in a while, their responses are a little odd!

But, unfortunately for DeSantis, he is not running considering running for president in a vacuum.

And the context in which this latest response from DeSantis lands is one in which there is a growing attempt by Trump to cast the Florida governor as an oddball.

Consider the “pudding fingers” ad.²

“Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don’t belong,” says the ad’s narrator while a DeSantis look-alike, um, sticks his fingers in a cup of chocolate pudding. “And we’re not just talking about pudding.”

The video is in reference to a Daily Beast story from March that includes these lines:

The chatter over DeSantis’ public engagement has also surfaced past unflattering stories about his social skills—particularly, his propensity to devour food during meetings…

…Enshrined in DeSantis lore is an episode from four years ago: During a private plane trip from Tallahassee to Washington, D.C., in March of 2019, DeSantis enjoyed a chocolate pudding dessert—by eating it with three of his fingers, according to two sources familiar with the incident.

The whole point of the video — which was produced by a pro-Trump super PAC — is to push the whole DeSantis-is-an-odd-dude notion into the Republican bloodstream.

Sure, the ad talks about policy — specifically DeSantis’ past support for making cuts to Social Security and Medicare — but the lingering image is of those fingers in that pudding cup. And the message it’s simple: DeSantis is gross and weird.

The governor isn’t helping his cause either. Aside from the bulging eyes and bobbing head response to a simple question about his political prospects, another news story broke over the weekend that cast DeSantis in a bad and weird light.

Former Michigan Rep. Dave Trott emailed POLITICO to note that DeSantis had never spoken to him — despite sitting next to him on the House Foreign Affairs Committee for TWO years.

“I go to my first [House Foreign Affairs Committee] hearing early, and DeSantis showed up right at the gavel time and didn’t say hello or introduce himself,” Trott told POLITICO. “And then the next hearing, the same thing happened. I think the third time it happened, I thought, ‘Oh, this guy’s not ever going to say hello to me.’”

Added Trott about DeSantis’ interpersonal skills:

“If you’re going to go into politics, kind of a fundamental skill that you should have is likability. I don’t think [he] has that,” Trott said. “He never developed any relationships with other members that I know of. You’d never see him talking on the floor with other people or palling around. He’s just a very arrogant guy, very focused on Ron DeSantis.”

Now, let’s remember two thing about a presidential nomination fight:

1. It is usually won and lost in small states like Iowa and New Hampshire where retail politics are a must.

2. It is, at root, a personality contest.

Start with the dependence on small states.

Running for the governor of Florida goes something like this: Raise massive amounts of money, then spend those massive amounts of money on TV ads blanketing the state.

Sure, you do events with voters. But the state is simply too big to meet everyone — or even close to everyone — who you need to vote for you.

The presidential primary process is a totally different thing. In places like Iowa and New Hampshire, the expectation among voters is that they will have a chance to meet you in person — at least once. These are states where glad-handing and baby-kissing matters. A lot.

And if you are either bad at that or uncomfortable with it, things don’t usually go well. (Paging Bill Bradley….)

Which leads to the second point — that running for president is a personality contest.

People may not like to hear that but the reality is that the people who win these nomination fights usually do so by the force of their personality, not with any specific policy proposals.

The vote for president is a uniquely personal one. A president is someone who you are going to see on your TV set for four whole years — and that puts a premium on voters’ comfort level with a politician. ³

The list of recent winners — Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden — reveals different personalities, yes, but forceful personalities to a man. All three men were able — by dint of their interpersonal skills — to convince the public that they “got” it, that they understood the hopes and dreams of the average Joe.

Being odd — or at least perceived as odd — then is a problem. It’s not un-fixable, of course. Candidates can get better on the campaign trail simply by doing the basics of retail politics again and again and again.

But, perception matters too. And the perception lingering around DeSantis is that he is a little off. Weird. Different.

Overcoming that impression will be among DeSantis’ first tasks once he becomes a candidate. And whether he succeeds at it will tell you a lot about whether he is a viable challenger to Trump or not.

1. The fact that Twitter has disabled the ability to embed tweets in Substack is deeply annoying to me. Like, are we really THAT petty, people?

2. See footnote #1. So annoying — and it makes for a less-good user experience too. Annoying.

3. It’s cliched but also true that the whole “who would I like to have a beer with” question matters in the context of a presidential election.