Desperate Dan
While the opinion polls had started to tighten in the final week of the campaign, the 38-year-old Simion had been favored to win the run-off after winning the first round with 41 percent of the vote to Dan’s 21 percent.
“After the first round, the people for our side felt a little bit desperate,” Dan says, seated at the Bistro Story Caffe in the center of Făgăraș, with his partner and family at the next table. “Mr. Simion made a lot of mistakes,” he adds, chief among them refusing to show up for television debates.
Dan and Simion debated each other directly only once — a three-hour affair that observers agreed benefited the mayor. While Simion spent much of the time attacking his opponent loudly and aggressively, Dan remained calm, delivering methodical responses and refusing to be drawn into a slanging match.
And that is very much his style: even-tempered, technical, intellectual, and showing little interest in game-playing or political theater. By background, Dan is a gifted mathematician, twice winning the International Mathematical Olympiad as a young man, and he has previously said he’d return to academia if he were to leave politics.
His otherworldliness can clearly be disconcerting for opponents who prefer a political street-fight to intellectual analysis. In the final days of the campaign, Simion caused an uproar by calling Dan “autistic.”
English breakfast
Unlike many thrusting and ambitious leaders, Dan does not have a punishing workout routine to brag about. Instead he stays trim by skipping evening meals. By the time he makes it to the restaurant, he’s ready for his “English breakfast” of eggs, bacon, sausages, beans and toast.
pl_facebook_pixel_args = [];
pl_facebook_pixel_args.userAgent = navigator.userAgent;
pl_facebook_pixel_args.language = navigator.language;
if ( document.referrer.indexOf( document.domain ) < 0 ) {
pl_facebook_pixel_args.referrer = document.referrer;
}
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',
'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');
fbq( 'consent', 'revoke' );
fbq( 'init', "394368290733607" );
fbq( 'track', 'PageView', pl_facebook_pixel_args );
if ( typeof window.__tcfapi !== 'undefined' ) {
window.__tcfapi( 'addEventListener', 2, function( tcData, listenerSuccess ) {
if ( listenerSuccess ) {
if ( tcData.eventStatus === 'useractioncomplete' || tcData.eventStatus === 'tcloaded' ) {
__tcfapi( 'getCustomVendorConsents', 2, function( vendorConsents, success ) {
if ( ! vendorConsents.hasOwnProperty( 'consentedPurposes' ) ) {
return;
}
const consents = vendorConsents.consentedPurposes.filter(
function( vendorConsents ) {
return 'Create profiles for personalised advertising' === vendorConsents.name;
}
);
if ( consents.length === 1 ) {
fbq( 'consent', 'grant' );
}
} );
}
}
});
}
