No, the revelation was equally disturbing: He as soon as ate a cup of pudding with three fingers. Not solely that, “He would sit in conferences and eat in entrance of individuals … like a ravenous animal who has by no means eaten earlier than,” mentioned a former staffer.

This isn’t a knock on the Every day Beast reporters who uncovered this info. Had a supply advised me the identical factor, I might have printed it, too. It’s colourful and paints an amusing image, no less than for those who don’t like DeSantis. Marketing campaign protection can’t be all coverage papers and finance stories.

However why is it that individuals appear to assume the way in which presidential candidates eat offers perception into who they’re deep of their souls?

It’s an everyday characteristic of marketing campaign protection. In 2019, it was reported that Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) as soon as ate salad with a comb for some motive. The identical 12 months, there was a narrative about one other Democratic contender, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), and her momentary uncertainty about whether or not she ought to use utensils to eat fried hen.

Typically, as with DeSantis, the story considerations a non-public meal reported by an nameless staffer appalled by the candidate’s desk manners. Different occasions, it occurs in public: The candidate ventures into unfamiliar territory, finds some native delicacy thrust upon them, and all of the assembled reporters lean ahead to see in the event that they chow down within the acceptable method.

And in the event that they don’t, there can be hell to pay. A number of candidates have come below assault for not ordering correctly once they come for a photograph op at Pat’s or Geno’s, the 2 legendary cheesesteak purveyors situated on the identical nook in South Philadelphia. When Democrat John F. Kerry ordered his with Swiss cheese, from reporters’ response you’ll have thought Swiss was an obscure and spectacularly costly number of cheese accessible solely at Versailles. It solely proved to them what a pampered toff the senator of Massachusetts was.

Twelve years later, Republican Scott Walker was hammered for ordering American cheese reasonably than Cheez Whiz and for not ending his steaks (although the Wisconsin governor did order two, one every from Pat’s and Geno’s, which you’d should be Joey Chestnut to down in a single meal).

One reporter questioned whether or not Republican Jeb Bush’s paleo weight loss plan would alienate him from the gluttonous American public. Fox Information was outraged when President Barack Obama ordered a cheeseburger with Dijon mustard. Invoice de Blasio’s tenure as mayor of New York was ruined when the Democrat was noticed consuming pizza with a fork and knife, a sin additionally dedicated by Republicans John Kasich, when he was governor of Ohio, and Donald Trump earlier than he ran for president.

And when poor President Gerald Ford was provided a plate of tamales in Texas, he grabbed one and bit into it with out shucking it, supposedly proving to each Hispanic American that he couldn’t care much less about them.

These tales are supposed to point out that there’s simply one thing off in regards to the candidate. Reporters gravitate to them not simply because it’s one thing novel to speak about within the repetitive grind of the marketing campaign, however as a result of it helps one of many foundational narratives of marketing campaign protection: These candidates are a bunch of phonies attempting to hide their true selves behind a wall of artifice and manipulation. We, the intrepid press, will present you who they are surely.

However the seek for “authenticity” winds up rewarding solely the candidates whose staffs are greatest ready and whose appearing expertise are finely honed. If a candidate walks into a neighborhood meals institution they’ve by no means been to, orders the preferred merchandise on the menu after which eats it simply the way in which individuals there do, that doesn’t essentially imply they will relate to odd people. It might simply imply they had been extensively briefed beforehand. Which tells you nothing about who they “actually” are.

But we proceed to seek for something peculiar about candidates — uncool musical tastes, a detailed relative with an arrest document, a propensity to eat pudding with their fingers — and current what we discover as if it calls their candidacy into query. On the floor, it appears to be about attending to know them, however it truly serves to dehumanize them.

The reality is that bizarre meals habits are nearly probably the most human factor there’s. I’ve one or two that my household and pals discover deeply unusual, and also you in all probability do, too.

So it’s wonderful to chortle at a candidate for the way in which they eat; there are few issues extra small-d democratic than mocking your leaders. Simply don’t overlook that it doesn’t inform us something about what kind of president they’d be.