Tara Palmeri: “On television, DeSantis can come across as savvy, reasonably well media-trained, and sometimes aggressive. (His wife, Casey, is a former local news anchor.) But in person, I immediately sensed a very different potential candidate: a guarded politician who had no interest in actually engaging with other humans, and was perhaps even a little scared of the spotlight. He had trouble making eye contact with people in the crowd. After five minutes of unmemorable remarks, we were quickly ushered out of the room…”
“As our small pool rushed over to the diner, however, DeSantis quickly bypassed the press… He immediately showed off his very limited retail skills. He asked one patron, ‘What’s your name?’ The man responded, ‘Tim Anthony.’ DeSantis just responded: ‘Ok!’ and moved on… It was my first personal observation of what DeSantis’s critics mean when they call him a paper tiger…”
“It’s one of the few conclusions I could draw after witnessing his poor performance at the Red Arrow diner, a low-wattage stage brimming with sycophants; or after his meeting with New Hampshire legislators, where, I heard, he apparently rambled on about his own Florida delegation, which is overwhelmingly Republican and less complicated to handle than New Hampshire’s. He was, I hate to say it, sanctimonious about his record, according to people in the room.”
