The more MAGA-inclined Republicans were supporting Rick Scott in the contest for Senate leadership. I understood why, given that Scott has probably bent the most toward the prevailing wind in the party.

But I just can’t shake the horrible impression I had of him. Maybe it was a one-off performance, but I’ve seen nothing to contradict my gut instinct from the first time I shared a room with him.

A few years ago, I saw him deliver a speech to a relatively excited National Conservatism Conference in his home state of Florida. He read the lines and landed on the appropriate silences for applause. But it seemed like he was having an out-of-body experience. He seemed engaged neither with any of the words he was saying nor with the convictions they conveyed. He seemed almost mentally unplugged. And I got the funny impression he was blinking Morse code to a driver in the back of the room, “Get me out of here.” You can watch it here. Maybe I’m being uncharitable. But, by comparison, Scott made the normally pretty straight-laced Ron DeSantis seem possessed of the talents of Daniel Day-Lewis.