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GOP
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It is widely said that many people vote for the candidate they would rather have a beer with. Or, probably more accurately, vote against the candidate they definitely would not want to have a beer with. Al Gore (2000), Mitt Romney (2012) and Hillary Clinton (2016) come to mind here.
One of the big, but as yet unspoken, problems Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is going to have is the "beer problem." Policy aside, most people regarded George W. Bush as an easy-going, friendly guy, while Bill Clinton could charm the spots off a leopard. DeSantis comes off as cold, calculating, sneaky, and aggressive, not at all like Bush or Clinton. He is going to have to work on his likability issue. You can learn what you have to know about the federal deficit by reading some briefing paper a staffer writes for you. You can't learn how to make people like you by reading a briefing paper. In DeSantis' case, it is even worse because being aggressively nasty in order to "own the libs" is the core of his popularity with the base. It would be hard for anyone to appear to the base as a killer while making independents think you are warm and fuzzy. Not since Ronald Reagan has any presidential candidate come even close to pulling that off, and DeSantis certainly does not have the temperament or personality to make it work.
He apparently realizes he has a problem and is at least trying to do something about it. Whether he will succeed is something else again. The viability of his candidacy may depend on whether he can pull it off.
After his inauguration earlier this month, DeSantis held a dinner for donors who had given at least $25,000 to his campaign. It was catered by a fancy Italian restaurant that had just moved from New York to Miami (take that, blue state). During the dinner, DeSantis and his wife Casey (whose real first name is Jill) went from table to table saying hello to the donors. For any other politician in the country, this would be normal. For DeSantis, this was a huge breakthrough. He hates this kind of "retail politics," even with his own wealthy donors. He is much happier mapping out a plan to ship immigrants from Texas to Massachusetts to own the libs than he is meeting voters, even those clearly in his camp.
This tiny step toward DeSantis v2.0 is brand new and he sometimes can't remember how he is supposed to behave for even 24 hours. The evening after the inauguration dinner with the donors, he held a black-tie ball with other contributors. He couldn't be bothered letting them all have a photo with him. Last November, he flew to the Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas, gave a speech, and flew home. He skipped the meet-and-greet part where potential donors could talk to him and size him up. At a recent meeting of the Republican Governors' Association, he gave his future stump speech. One of the attendees cracked that he didn't get to do both the question and answer part. One other donor said: "Ron is a little reserved and dry compared to George W. Bush and Bill Clinton." Even his own staff thinks forging connections with people is not his strength.
In 2016, Donald Trump broke and changed the rules. Until then, retail politics was crucial for candidates. They had to mix with the people, be seen eating all manner of ethnic foods, and engage in sports (or at least be seen jogging). The big question now is whether retail politics is gone forever or was Trump unique and everyone else has to go back to the old way of winning votes one at a time. In this context, it is worth noting that Pete Buttigieg came from nowhere to become one of the top Democratic candidates in 2020 because he met so many voters personally and they liked him. If retail politics is not dead, DeSantis needs to learn some new skills.
DeSantis' disdain for people holds not only for donors, but even for Republican politicians. When George W. Bush was reelected governor in 1998, at the National Governors' Association meeting in Feb. 1999, a dozen other Republican governors touted Bush for president, even before he announced a run. By contrast, Politico recently asked a plugged-in Republican governor if any current Republican governor will back DeSantis before his announcement, or even on the first day of his candidacy, and the answer was: "I don't think so." Another Republican governor reported that when someone asked him how to contact DeSantis, all he could do was go online and find the official home page for the governor of Florida. DeSantis doesn't even like hanging out with other Republican governors.
It is also noteworthy that not a single Republican governor showed up for DeSantis' inauguration, not even the Republican governors from adjacent states, Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) and Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA). The governors may want to move on from Trump, but they don't like DeSantis. It's a far cry from 2000, when many Republican governors offered Bush their endorsements, strategists, donor networks, and control of their state parties early on.
It is still very early, but we can imagine a brutal Republican primary in which Trump and DeSantis fight over who is the meanist S.O.B and who can own the libs best, but if DeSantis wins that, he will have his work cut out for him trying to convince moderate Republicans, independents, and conservative Democrats that he'd be fun to have a beer with. (V)