Rocky de la Fuente, a wealthy San Diego businessman who just moved to the city last month, is running for mayor as a Republican. He doesn't see his newcomer status as a problem, but as NY1's Grace Rauh discovered when she interviewed him, he does not seem quite ready for all the questions that will come his way as a candidate. 

Rocky De La Fuente is what you might call a new New Yorker. Just how long has he lived here?

"Exactly 17 days," he says.

Seventeen days in the city he says he wants to run, a city he is only just beginning to know.

"Maybe I get it better than most. Maybe I play chess and I can look six moves ahead," he said.

He invited reporters to his penthouse apartment on West 45th Street, a rental. There were views, flowers, food and a dining room table connected to the ceiling by thick chains.

"If you were looking out to who you would hire in New York, you would go get the best headhunter, or five headhunters to find the best person, the best CEO for the city," De La Fuente said. "This is not a Mickey Mouse job. This is not a just-in-case job. This is a job for someone for someone who can make it happen, has the expertise, the leadership to make it happen."

De La Fuente is a entrepreneur and developer from San Diego. He grew up in Mexico. Last year, he ran a longshot bid for pesident, a campaign he kicked off with a video showing him diving fully clothed into a swimming pool.

"Here is a lot easier race than the presidential race," De La Fuente said.

He refused to say how much money he would be willing to spend on his own campaign.

"My dear, I will cross that bridge when that bridge comes," he said.

He tried hard to avoid being pinned down about his campaign, policy or anything else. And he had a habit of answering questions with questions of his own.

"Have you ever dated a Hispanic?" he asked as we discussed immigration. It is an issue that seemed to particularly animate him.

"Mayor de Blasio wants to create a sanctuary city. Us Latins want to have the opportunity to be here legally, want the opportunity to have the documents, want the opportunity to be with our families," De La Fuente said.

He has not been embraced by local Republicans. The chairwoman of the Manhattan GOP said, "Rocky will have a difficult time because he is running in a party that he's never been registered in, in a city he's never lived in."

As De La Fuente may be about to find out, setting up shop in a Midtown apartment is one thing. Connecting with voters in all five boroughs is another.