But Ron DeSantis isn’t warm and fuzzy, so he can’t be president



Just wait until you get to know Ron DeSantis.” It was published last week in The Atlantic by staff writer Mark Leibovich, who attempted to distill the essence of Florida’s governor from a handful of interviews that included avowed ex-GOP Never Trumpers Rick Wilson and Mac Stipanovich, both of whom deliver the expected quotes with their usual colorful flair.

But for those who move in political circles in Florida, the descriptions aren’t “new” at all. They’ve been used to describe DeSantis since he was just another congressman trying to make a name for himself with frequent appearances on Fox News. And the descriptions keep getting repeated, at least partly, because they probably contain some small kernels of truth.

Not everyone agrees, though.

“I reject the premise that Governor DeSantis isn’t the guy you want to have a beer with,” says Skylar Zandar, Florida’s state director for Americans for Prosperity. “I’ve had the fortunate ability to see him on the baseball field with his son and I’ve spent time with he and his family in social settings and I can tell you he’s a normal guy. He’s loves sports and loves policy. If you can’t connect with him over that then, maybe you’re not the best judge of social acceptance.”

But plenty of others have come away from interactions with DeSantis and concluded he lacks the personal magnetism they’d hoped for.

Leibovich reasons that those criticisms will knock some of the shine off DeSantis’s rising star. Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, he writes, won’t take to DeSantis when he inevitably hits the campaign trail and tries his hand at their traditional retail-style presidential politics.

Ironically, this weekend, the Democrat National Committee (DNC), pushed by President Joe Biden, decided that Iowa is too white and too Republican to keep its place at the head of the line in presidential politics. Iowa may yet ignore the DNC and move their own caucus into late 2023 to keep Iowa first, but it remains to be seen just how much Iowa’s “aw-shucks” politics will factor into the presidential plans of either party or any single candidate.

The shifting caucus dates aside, does the anti-DeSantis narrative really have any teeth? Do voters care whether or not…



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