“It smells good, I’ll tell you that,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says as he walks stiffly through a crowd in a New Hampshire diner. DeSantis hadn’t yet announced his candidacy for president when the video below was recorded, but he is clearly already running — blue blazer and shiny hair in full candidate mode.
Former Senator Al Franken, who as the creator of Stuart Smiley knows something about socially challenged people, disagrees about one thing at least: he doesn’t think the DeSantis video smells good at all.
Franken sees a failure to connect and an aloofness that doesn’t merely show DeSantis failing “Campaigning 101.” As Franken sees it, the robotic Florida Governor is failing “Human Being 101.”
If you ever thought that DeSantis had a ghost of a chance, watch this video of him in NH. Listen to his “Ok.” after a guy tells him his name. This isn’t Campaigning 101. It’s Human Being 101. https://t.co/tDD5YOyYlw
— Al Franken (@alfranken) May 23, 2023
A Harvard-educated lawyer and Disney fighter who relishes a culture war, DeSantis is said to lack a certain gift for what’s called “retail” politics, even among those who like his policies. He’s far more hot and bothered than warm and friendly.
Retail politics, of course, is the handshaking and eye-meeting that happens before and after the stump speeches, and happens a lot. It’s what — different as they are — Joe Biden and Donald Trump, not to mention Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, have excelled at during their respective political careers.
Franken’s assessment matches a recent description in Politico, which mocks the governor after saying it won’t. “Not to mock the governor,” Politico’s Jack Shafer writes, “but he exudes more coldness than coolness. He gives every appearance of not particularly liking people, and that feeling has been reciprocated in the recent national polls.”
That’s not to say DeSantis seems inhuman: Leave that to the Saturday Night Live and Harvard Lampoon veteran Franken. Human Being 101, after all, is the subject of all true comedy.
DeSantis may yet prove to be a real contender, and polish up his “retail” action, but Franken/Smiley will tell you — he’s no Michael Jordan, that’s for sure.
