What is unusual is not that O’Rourke hasn’t said yet if he is running — Joe Biden hasn’t, either. It’s that O’Rourke, unlike any other potential presidential candidate, confirmed more than a week ago that he made his decision. He just won’t say what it is.

Instead, the politician who sowed his entire persona on a thread of authenticity — crisscrossing Texas while eschewing pollsters and political consultants in his Senate run last year — is now manufacturing suspense.

“It’s a bit much,” said one Democratic strategist who has spoken with O’Rourke about working on the 2020 campaign. “The question is, does he have a secret sauce that no one knows about — that no reporter, no operative, no strategist understands? Or is this just the ‘Beto Show.’ And if this is just the ‘Beto Show,’ there’s a breaking point between strategy and narcissism.”