10 ms·

It's Charisma, Stupid

29 points by mqt 19y ago

emmett 19y ago
The one problem with the theory I see is that it's easy to choose which candidate is more charismatic after they've won. So, PG - put your money where your mouth is. Who's the most charismatic candidate this time?
- kul 19y ago
  there's an obama sticker on his homepage
  - emmett 19y ago
    Nice catch. I didn't notice that. However, maybe PG just likes Obama - you can support a candidate that you don't think is certain (or even likely) to win. * No longer relevant given PG's response
- staunch 19y ago
  Seems obvious to me. Obama by 100 miles. Bill Clinton is even more charismatic, but Hilary alone is not even in the same league. McCain isn't either.
  - robg 19y ago
    McCain is pretty darn charismatic. Not in the "I'm a nice guy" sense, but in the "I'm authentic" sense. The former is more universally appealing, but the latter certainly has legs. Bush.v2 seemed to convey more of the authenticity, but he would have lost to Bill Clinton. That's what amazing to me about 2000 - Bill Clinton wins that contest, blue dress and all. Still, if there's no blue dress Gore wins in a landslide. The McCain-Obama matchup this fall is interesting, for the contrasts, but I have to agree that Obama has the once-in-a-generation kind of charisma.
  - jimbokun 19y ago
    "Bill Clinton is even more charismatic..." I would say that, in 2007/2008, Obama is far more charismatic. Bill Clinton has tried to inject his "charisma" into this campaign on his wife's behalf and has not made a dent in the "charsima gap" between his wife and Obama. Trying to compare charisma of 1992 Bill to 2008 Barack is like trying to athletes across eras. Different issues, different prevailing attitudes among the populace, etc.
    - wallflower 19y ago
      Friends who have met Bill Clinton in person say he makes you feel great/important even though they only meet him for mere seconds. I mean, he is an ex-POTUS and he makes you feel like the star. If that isn't charisma, what is?
  - mhartl 19y ago
    Why does everyone seem to forget that Bill Clinton won only in the context of a strong third-party candidate? If not for Ross Perot's run in 1992, Clinton would almost certainly have lost to Bush senior---and taken down the "charisma wins" theory with him.
    - jmtulloss 19y ago
      While Bush senior might have won without Perot, I don't think it takes down the "charisma wins" argument, since I don't think it applies in elections where there's an incumbent running. The incumbent has a clear advantage, and is presumably already somewhat charismatic since he got elected the first time. While Clinton was certainly more charismatic than Bush, Bush's incumbent status should have been enough to overcome this and win.
    - Elfan 19y ago
      Do you have a source for this? Every analysis of exit polls I have seen (for example: http://www.fairvote.org/plurality/perot.htm http://www.fairvote.org/plurality/perot.htm) shows that Perot split the votes fairly evenly.
      - mhartl 19y ago
        Strangely, I can't find much either way. I thought there was a clear case for Bush over Clinton absent Perot, but I may well be wrong. I also worded the original comment too strongly. Clearly, charisma is a big factor in modern elections, and one data point isn't enough to disprove anything in any case. Concluding that "it's charisma, stupid" does seem to rely on very small-number statistics, though.
  - zach 19y ago
    Obama is off the charts, but let's be honest, McCain can hold his own in any charisma contest. Do you ever wonder why you never hear about John McCain's ex? This is from a 2000 profile: Mr. McCain abandoned his wife, who had reared their three children while he was in Vietnamese prisons, and he then began his political career with the resources of his new wife's family. Yet although Mr. McCain's children and some friends were angry and disappointed with him at the time, they rally around him today. No candidate could be luckier in his choice of an ex-wife than Senator McCain, and he must be the only politician around who could cheat on his wife and divorce her and still get her support and her campaign contributions today. Even her friends rave about him. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B02EFDF1439F934A15751C0A9669C8B63 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B02EFDF1439F...
- pg 19y ago
  Those assessments of charisma are pretty generally agreed upon. This time it looks like Obama, but I can't say for sure because I never watch TV. I've only seen about 20 seconds of him, in a clip on YouTube. Hilary Clinton reminds me a lot of Nixon II. She has that same forced smile of someone who's naturally a behind the scenes operator, but who realizes you have to seem friendly to get elected.
  - jkush 19y ago
    That is probably the best description of Hilary Clinton I've ever read.
  - pius 19y ago
    Very true. To me it seems that the two most charismatic candidates in this race are Obama and Huckabee.
mqt 19y ago
Also, "What Charisma Is" http://www.paulgraham.com/recharisma.html http://www.paulgraham.com/recharisma.html
- huherto 19y ago
  I can relate to this. Vicente Fox, last president of Mexico was like that. He was fiercely attacked and he made some very stupid comments. Still his popularity remained high. But you could see that he was really happy when he interacted with poor children or old people.
Eliezer 19y ago
My first impression was that you were doing a lot of work to explain every single exception or near-exception to your theory. The case of Gore winning the popular vote is probably the most damaging. I'd consider downgrading the claim to "As video becomes more prevalent, charisma is an increasingly powerful factor." If you really believe your theory, you should buy Obama for president on Intrade. In fact, you should have bought Obama back when he was trading at 30%, which would make the advance predictive powers of the theory more impressive. How much does hindsight play a role in deciding which candidate was more "charismatic"?
- Eliezer 19y ago
  Oops, didn't notice original post was from 2004. Still, claims to be able to predict elections are a lot more impressive when the person makes a bet on Intrade and then cashes in on it. Money, meet mouth; mouth, meet money.
- pg 19y ago
  I said charisma wins elections, not primaries. Primaries are a different matter. Dealmaking seems to count for a lot. That's why they sometimes produce candidates that are so shockingly unelectable, like Mondale.
  - robg 19y ago
    To be fair to your theory, Reagan was a beast of charisma, wasn't he? I don't think JFK could have beaten him. Mondale was the party faithful rewarding their own in spite of the coming carnage (see also, Dole). Indeed, that explains to me the one case I'd argue against in your version of recent history. Bush '88 seems in retrospect to have been less charismatic than Dukakis. Or they were very, very close in their wonkiness. But Bush senior was given the benefit of the doubt by the electorate. He became more charismatic in being associated with the Reagan force of nature even as he was actually a big ole stiff. That eventually came out by 1992. I'd argue the same osmosis almost carried Gore to the presidency. A few moans here and a blue dress there made it much closer than it ever should have been. Problem is, Gore never figured out how to embrace the Clinton legacy (and in so doing would have become more charismatic) while distancing himself from the more distasteful behavior. Still, Gore looked to me, at the time, like a one-term president because of his lack of charisma.
Herring 19y ago
Well how would you prove it? Just list who was running & pick the most charismatic? There must be many factors to control for, eg incumbency & apportionment. We can do a real study or we can sit around talking till the data comes in.
- mqt 19y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=113864 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=113864 You only have two choices. He's saying that the candidate with the most genuine smile is likely to win; past elections are evidence.
rms 19y ago
Followup: http://www.paulgraham.com/recharisma.html http://www.paulgraham.com/recharisma.html
david927 19y ago
I think it would be better put as, "The person who exudes leadership qualities is more likely to succeed." It's well known that the taller of the two presidential candidates usually wins, for example. And here's a great article from The Economist on "Physiognomy and Success": http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10559771&CFID=8349270&CFTOKEN=4e0097666a3a1956-CEDEB1E4-B27C-BB00-0129C15E4242DFB2 http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1...
- mqt 19y ago
  At this level in politics, all candidates have "leadership qualities." Unless there is a large difference in height (5+ inches, which doesn't happen very often), no one is going to notice. Bush is shorter than both Gore and Kerry. Guess what? He has much more charisma. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heights_of_United_States_presidential_candidates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heights_of_United_State...
  - david927 19y ago
    At this level in politics, all candidates have "charisma" too. He only has more charisma if you define it a posteriori as having won the election. > Bush is shorter than both Gore and Kerry. Guess what? He has much more charisma. But he lost the popular vote to Gore. So charisma understands the electoral college?
    - mdemare 19y ago
      No, I disagree. There are plenty of completely uncharismatic politicians around. (John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul, Bob Dole, Bush the Elder).
      - pchristensen 19y ago
        None of them got elected president (except Bush 41, and he was running against Dukakis). All of the data pg used in his argument was about winning presidential general elections.
rontr 19y ago
I think that it's impossible to state firmly (especially in a forum called hacker news :) ) that George Bush Jr beat either Gore or Kerry. This is because electronic voting machines were used to count many of the votes. Electronic voting machines leave no paper trail which means the results are unverifiable.
- rontr 19y ago
  Ugh. The Diebold bot is voting me down.
brianr 19y ago
As for the theory being obvious, as far as I know, no one has proposed it before. Some interesting things come up for a Google Scholar search for "election charisma" (sans quotes). See "Charisma in the 1952 Election", The American Political Science Review, 1954. From a quick skim of this and some other search results, it looks like the theory has been explored a bit and not found much supporting evidence.
- ken 19y ago
  How many elections since the invention of TV had there been in 1954?
tokipin 19y ago
what's interesting is that the most charismatic personality type in Jungian theories (ENFJ in MBTI/Kiersey) has never been found in a president, nor has any other 'idealist' http://www.keirsey.com/idealist_presidents.aspx http://www.keirsey.com/idealist_presidents.aspx but it's clearly not a matter of incapability. these people are very human-oriented and like working close to others, things like functional management simply aren't appealing to them
- jkush 19y ago
  That's probably because those personality types start cults. I've no evidence to back that claim up, though.
mynameishere 19y ago
9/10ths of the real charisma in this election belongs to Huckabee. His policies are ass-backwards, but he seems like a great guy. Clinton is like a robotic mom addressing a kindergarten class. Obama's charisma, as near as I can tell, is like that of Ron Paul, who actually has almost none. Rather, his supporters all support him because they have decided to see in him what they want to see. I find him hard to listen to--he forces him voice unnaturally low, and seems to stress the wrong words for emphasis. McCain has no charisma, but he's the only candidate that could really induce fear rather than love.
- comatose_kid 19y ago
  Obama has almost no charisma? Um, okay....
  - mynameishere 19y ago
    Um, okay.... Sigh. Here's where I explicate my own words. "who actually has almost none" references Ron Paul. Obama's charisma is similar to RP's in that much of it comes from the fact that his supporters are looking at him sideways. One instance from xkcd: I want, for once, someone I can vote for not because I dislike the other candidate, but because I’m proud of mine. Obama is the real thing. Obama has shown a real commitment to open government. Now, the above expresses an actual liking, not just an agreement policy-wise. I really like Ron Paul's platform, by contrast, but frankly find him annoying. It's important to spot the difference there. Now, Munroe, who is by all accounts a smart person, is supporting Obama because of something called "open government", which Obama has "real commitment" to. I don't see this commitment in the platform, which doesn't contain any references to it: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/2008/bios/view.bg?articleid=1063110 http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/2008/bios... What I see in the platform is standard leftism. But even that is not where Obama's "real commitment" is--his real commitment is "civil rights", if that is understood properly. Fine. It doesn't matter. The point is this: To really like a guy for something that is a completely negligble part of his platform is quite dangerous. I'm sure a lot of his supporters are actually supporting him for an even worse reason: Because it is the "moral" thing to do, in and of itself.
edw519 19y ago
The comments about 1968 showed how much has changed. On March 31, President Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection. So Hubert Humphrey launched his campaign in April. Think about it. That would be like Al Gore entering this race 6 weeks from now. What chance would he have? Also, the nomination defaulted to Humphrey when RFK, possibly the most charismatic candidate ever, was murdered in June. Nixon had been campaigning behind the scenes for 4 years. Add Vietnam, civil unrest, and culture clash, and Humphrey (the pseudo-incumbent) didn't stand a chance. I agree with pg's theory. We need charismatic leaders. We crave them. I often wonder how much different the world would be today if JFK, RFK, and MLK hadn't been murdered.
- yummyfajitas 19y ago
  People want charismatic leaders, but I don't think we need them. In fact, I think they are extremely dangerous. Think for a moment about JFK's catch phrase: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Compare it to catch phrases of other charismatic leaders: "All within the State, Nothing outside the State, Nothing against the State" "The common good comes before the private good." (Sorry for invoking Godwin, but it's important to point out how his charisma obscured what JFK actually said.) I think it's far better to have a leader that everyone hates. Just think of the outcry if Bush suggested the people should serve the state.
  - pchristensen 19y ago
    "I think it's far better to have a leader that everyone hates." Unless that leader has given even the uninformed a reason to hate him ...
    - yummyfajitas 19y ago
      A charismatic leader can give the uninformed a reason to hate him, but it won't change their feelings. An example: a gay friend of mine dislikes Bush because he proposed a law against gay marriage (at least that is his stated reason). He has very strong positive feelings for (Bill) Clinton, in spite of the fact that Clinton actually passed a law against gay marriage (Defense of Marriage Act). His feelings persisted even after I pointed this out to him. Maybe I just have stupid friends (I don't think this is the case), but my general impression is that most people don't base their opinion of a politician on policy. Rather, they take their opinion on the policy from the party or politician they like.
deleted 19y ago
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gruseom 19y ago
I once ran across a book with a similar theory. It was one of those hybrid self-help-business-motivational type books, called something like "You Have To Be Believed To Be Heard". I picked it up idly and happened on a really interesting analysis of presidential elections. The author's point was that the candidate who is better able to establish a positive emotional connection with voters almost always wins, and that ideology and policy had nothing to do with it. (I can't remember if he used the word "charisma".) His main thesis was that the primary emotional brain decides first whether or not it likes something, and only secondarily do rational considerations kick in; therefore, before communicating rationally one must, so to speak, establish positive credentials with the limbic system. The rest of the book was ostensibly about how to go about doing this. Unfortunately it didn't really deliver. But I remember watching the Bush/Kerry debates with this in mind and thinking, there is no rational basis on which Bush should be re-elected, yet if that book was right, Kerry's finished.
- pchristensen 19y ago
  Bullseye. And most people would rather like a folksy, funny guy that talks like they do instead of a rich, over-educated, boring guy.
pchristensen 19y ago
Interesting that this thread has about as many political comments as the rest of YCNews combined, but no one has complained. It's a good example of civil, intelligent political discussion.
gibsonf1 19y ago
Obama clearly wins the charisma contest. My wife has fallen for him, reading all his books, etc. This article "Women 'falling for Obama'" really reinforces PG's point http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2269063,00.html http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2269063...
- jmtulloss 19y ago
  I agree that Obama is more charismatic, but Hillary keeps getting the womens' vote (At least the white and hispanic ones). This primary is particularly interesting because you're not choosing between two rich white men. Suddenly there's a question of not just "Who has the most charisma?" but also "Who can I best identify with?" According to the states that have had primaries so far, blacks and white women overwhelmingly support the candidate that looks like them. Perhaps that's even more important that charisma? At the same time, I agree with PG that charisma doesn't play as big a part in primaries. Bill and Hillary are the leaders of the democratic party, so it makes sense that democrats would vote for Hillary rather than the more charismatic Obama.
ericb 19y ago
PG: Could attractiveness could be substituted for charisma effectively in your theory? Perhaps attractiveness is just an element of charisma, but if considered that way, there's a large body of psychological research that backs you up. For example, this abstract lists a only a really tiny sliver of the repeatable results: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-6543 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-6543(199224)62%3A4%3C413%3AEIAJOP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L
- brlewis 19y ago
  Here's a version of the link that news.yc will take: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-6543%28199224%2962%3A4%3C413%3AEIAJOP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-6543%28199224%2962%3A4... Paul Buchheit related this phenomenon to product design in http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/08/first-thing-that-you-need-to-understand.html http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/08/first-thing-that-yo...
foonamefoo 19y ago
I know Paul is of the opinion that tables are simpler than divs, but even tables don't have to be set to a fixed width in pixels!

29 points by mqt 19y ago

The one problem with the theory I see is that it's easy to choose which candidate is more charismatic after they've won. So, PG - put your money where your mouth is. Who's the most charismatic candidate this time?

kul 19y ago
there's an obama sticker on his homepage
- emmett 19y ago
  Nice catch. I didn't notice that. However, maybe PG just likes Obama - you can support a candidate that you don't think is certain (or even likely) to win. * No longer relevant given PG's response
staunch 19y ago
Seems obvious to me. Obama by 100 miles. Bill Clinton is even more charismatic, but Hilary alone is not even in the same league. McCain isn't either.
- robg 19y ago
  McCain is pretty darn charismatic. Not in the "I'm a nice guy" sense, but in the "I'm authentic" sense. The former is more universally appealing, but the latter certainly has legs. Bush.v2 seemed to convey more of the authenticity, but he would have lost to Bill Clinton. That's what amazing to me about 2000 - Bill Clinton wins that contest, blue dress and all. Still, if there's no blue dress Gore wins in a landslide. The McCain-Obama matchup this fall is interesting, for the contrasts, but I have to agree that Obama has the once-in-a-generation kind of charisma.
- jimbokun 19y ago
  "Bill Clinton is even more charismatic..." I would say that, in 2007/2008, Obama is far more charismatic. Bill Clinton has tried to inject his "charisma" into this campaign on his wife's behalf and has not made a dent in the "charsima gap" between his wife and Obama. Trying to compare charisma of 1992 Bill to 2008 Barack is like trying to athletes across eras. Different issues, different prevailing attitudes among the populace, etc.
  - wallflower 19y ago
    Friends who have met Bill Clinton in person say he makes you feel great/important even though they only meet him for mere seconds. I mean, he is an ex-POTUS and he makes you feel like the star. If that isn't charisma, what is?
- mhartl 19y ago
  Why does everyone seem to forget that Bill Clinton won only in the context of a strong third-party candidate? If not for Ross Perot's run in 1992, Clinton would almost certainly have lost to Bush senior---and taken down the "charisma wins" theory with him.
  - jmtulloss 19y ago
    While Bush senior might have won without Perot, I don't think it takes down the "charisma wins" argument, since I don't think it applies in elections where there's an incumbent running. The incumbent has a clear advantage, and is presumably already somewhat charismatic since he got elected the first time. While Clinton was certainly more charismatic than Bush, Bush's incumbent status should have been enough to overcome this and win.
  - Elfan 19y ago
    Do you have a source for this? Every analysis of exit polls I have seen (for example: http://www.fairvote.org/plurality/perot.htm http://www.fairvote.org/plurality/perot.htm) shows that Perot split the votes fairly evenly.
    - mhartl 19y ago
      Strangely, I can't find much either way. I thought there was a clear case for Bush over Clinton absent Perot, but I may well be wrong. I also worded the original comment too strongly. Clearly, charisma is a big factor in modern elections, and one data point isn't enough to disprove anything in any case. Concluding that "it's charisma, stupid" does seem to rely on very small-number statistics, though.
- zach 19y ago
  Obama is off the charts, but let's be honest, McCain can hold his own in any charisma contest. Do you ever wonder why you never hear about John McCain's ex? This is from a 2000 profile: Mr. McCain abandoned his wife, who had reared their three children while he was in Vietnamese prisons, and he then began his political career with the resources of his new wife's family. Yet although Mr. McCain's children and some friends were angry and disappointed with him at the time, they rally around him today. No candidate could be luckier in his choice of an ex-wife than Senator McCain, and he must be the only politician around who could cheat on his wife and divorce her and still get her support and her campaign contributions today. Even her friends rave about him. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B02EFDF1439F934A15751C0A9669C8B63 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B02EFDF1439F...
pg 19y ago
Those assessments of charisma are pretty generally agreed upon. This time it looks like Obama, but I can't say for sure because I never watch TV. I've only seen about 20 seconds of him, in a clip on YouTube. Hilary Clinton reminds me a lot of Nixon II. She has that same forced smile of someone who's naturally a behind the scenes operator, but who realizes you have to seem friendly to get elected.
- jkush 19y ago
  That is probably the best description of Hilary Clinton I've ever read.
- pius 19y ago
  Very true. To me it seems that the two most charismatic candidates in this race are Obama and Huckabee.

mqt 19y ago

Also, "What Charisma Is" http://www.paulgraham.com/recharisma.html http://www.paulgraham.com/recharisma.html

huherto 19y ago
I can relate to this. Vicente Fox, last president of Mexico was like that. He was fiercely attacked and he made some very stupid comments. Still his popularity remained high. But you could see that he was really happy when he interacted with poor children or old people.

Eliezer 19y ago

My first impression was that you were doing a lot of work to explain every single exception or near-exception to your theory. The case of Gore winning the popular vote is probably the most damaging. I'd consider downgrading the claim to "As video becomes more prevalent, charisma is an increasingly powerful factor." If you really believe your theory, you should buy Obama for president on Intrade. In fact, you should have bought Obama back when he was trading at 30%, which would make the advance predictive powers of the theory more impressive. How much does hindsight play a role in deciding which candidate was more "charismatic"?

Eliezer 19y ago
Oops, didn't notice original post was from 2004. Still, claims to be able to predict elections are a lot more impressive when the person makes a bet on Intrade and then cashes in on it. Money, meet mouth; mouth, meet money.
pg 19y ago
I said charisma wins elections, not primaries. Primaries are a different matter. Dealmaking seems to count for a lot. That's why they sometimes produce candidates that are so shockingly unelectable, like Mondale.
- robg 19y ago
  To be fair to your theory, Reagan was a beast of charisma, wasn't he? I don't think JFK could have beaten him. Mondale was the party faithful rewarding their own in spite of the coming carnage (see also, Dole). Indeed, that explains to me the one case I'd argue against in your version of recent history. Bush '88 seems in retrospect to have been less charismatic than Dukakis. Or they were very, very close in their wonkiness. But Bush senior was given the benefit of the doubt by the electorate. He became more charismatic in being associated with the Reagan force of nature even as he was actually a big ole stiff. That eventually came out by 1992. I'd argue the same osmosis almost carried Gore to the presidency. A few moans here and a blue dress there made it much closer than it ever should have been. Problem is, Gore never figured out how to embrace the Clinton legacy (and in so doing would have become more charismatic) while distancing himself from the more distasteful behavior. Still, Gore looked to me, at the time, like a one-term president because of his lack of charisma.

Herring 19y ago

Well how would you prove it? Just list who was running & pick the most charismatic? There must be many factors to control for, eg incumbency & apportionment. We can do a real study or we can sit around talking till the data comes in.

mqt 19y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=113864 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=113864 You only have two choices. He's saying that the candidate with the most genuine smile is likely to win; past elections are evidence.

rms 19y ago

Followup: http://www.paulgraham.com/recharisma.html http://www.paulgraham.com/recharisma.html

david927 19y ago

I think it would be better put as, "The person who exudes leadership qualities is more likely to succeed." It's well known that the taller of the two presidential candidates usually wins, for example. And here's a great article from The Economist on "Physiognomy and Success": http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10559771&CFID=8349270&CFTOKEN=4e0097666a3a1956-CEDEB1E4-B27C-BB00-0129C15E4242DFB2 http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1...

mqt 19y ago
At this level in politics, all candidates have "leadership qualities." Unless there is a large difference in height (5+ inches, which doesn't happen very often), no one is going to notice. Bush is shorter than both Gore and Kerry. Guess what? He has much more charisma. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heights_of_United_States_presidential_candidates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heights_of_United_State...
- david927 19y ago
  At this level in politics, all candidates have "charisma" too. He only has more charisma if you define it a posteriori as having won the election. > Bush is shorter than both Gore and Kerry. Guess what? He has much more charisma. But he lost the popular vote to Gore. So charisma understands the electoral college?
  - mdemare 19y ago
    No, I disagree. There are plenty of completely uncharismatic politicians around. (John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul, Bob Dole, Bush the Elder).
    - pchristensen 19y ago
      None of them got elected president (except Bush 41, and he was running against Dukakis). All of the data pg used in his argument was about winning presidential general elections.

rontr 19y ago

I think that it's impossible to state firmly (especially in a forum called hacker news :) ) that George Bush Jr beat either Gore or Kerry. This is because electronic voting machines were used to count many of the votes. Electronic voting machines leave no paper trail which means the results are unverifiable.

rontr 19y ago
Ugh. The Diebold bot is voting me down.

brianr 19y ago

As for the theory being obvious, as far as I know, no one has proposed it before. Some interesting things come up for a Google Scholar search for "election charisma" (sans quotes). See "Charisma in the 1952 Election", The American Political Science Review, 1954. From a quick skim of this and some other search results, it looks like the theory has been explored a bit and not found much supporting evidence.

ken 19y ago
How many elections since the invention of TV had there been in 1954?

tokipin 19y ago

what's interesting is that the most charismatic personality type in Jungian theories (ENFJ in MBTI/Kiersey) has never been found in a president, nor has any other 'idealist' http://www.keirsey.com/idealist_presidents.aspx http://www.keirsey.com/idealist_presidents.aspx but it's clearly not a matter of incapability. these people are very human-oriented and like working close to others, things like functional management simply aren't appealing to them

jkush 19y ago
That's probably because those personality types start cults. I've no evidence to back that claim up, though.

mynameishere 19y ago

9/10ths of the real charisma in this election belongs to Huckabee. His policies are ass-backwards, but he seems like a great guy. Clinton is like a robotic mom addressing a kindergarten class. Obama's charisma, as near as I can tell, is like that of Ron Paul, who actually has almost none. Rather, his supporters all support him because they have decided to see in him what they want to see. I find him hard to listen to--he forces him voice unnaturally low, and seems to stress the wrong words for emphasis. McCain has no charisma, but he's the only candidate that could really induce fear rather than love.

comatose_kid 19y ago
Obama has almost no charisma? Um, okay....
- mynameishere 19y ago
  Um, okay.... Sigh. Here's where I explicate my own words. "who actually has almost none" references Ron Paul. Obama's charisma is similar to RP's in that much of it comes from the fact that his supporters are looking at him sideways. One instance from xkcd: I want, for once, someone I can vote for not because I dislike the other candidate, but because I’m proud of mine. Obama is the real thing. Obama has shown a real commitment to open government. Now, the above expresses an actual liking, not just an agreement policy-wise. I really like Ron Paul's platform, by contrast, but frankly find him annoying. It's important to spot the difference there. Now, Munroe, who is by all accounts a smart person, is supporting Obama because of something called "open government", which Obama has "real commitment" to. I don't see this commitment in the platform, which doesn't contain any references to it: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/2008/bios/view.bg?articleid=1063110 http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/2008/bios... What I see in the platform is standard leftism. But even that is not where Obama's "real commitment" is--his real commitment is "civil rights", if that is understood properly. Fine. It doesn't matter. The point is this: To really like a guy for something that is a completely negligble part of his platform is quite dangerous. I'm sure a lot of his supporters are actually supporting him for an even worse reason: Because it is the "moral" thing to do, in and of itself.

edw519 19y ago

The comments about 1968 showed how much has changed. On March 31, President Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection. So Hubert Humphrey launched his campaign in April. Think about it. That would be like Al Gore entering this race 6 weeks from now. What chance would he have? Also, the nomination defaulted to Humphrey when RFK, possibly the most charismatic candidate ever, was murdered in June. Nixon had been campaigning behind the scenes for 4 years. Add Vietnam, civil unrest, and culture clash, and Humphrey (the pseudo-incumbent) didn't stand a chance. I agree with pg's theory. We need charismatic leaders. We crave them. I often wonder how much different the world would be today if JFK, RFK, and MLK hadn't been murdered.

yummyfajitas 19y ago
People want charismatic leaders, but I don't think we need them. In fact, I think they are extremely dangerous. Think for a moment about JFK's catch phrase: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Compare it to catch phrases of other charismatic leaders: "All within the State, Nothing outside the State, Nothing against the State" "The common good comes before the private good." (Sorry for invoking Godwin, but it's important to point out how his charisma obscured what JFK actually said.) I think it's far better to have a leader that everyone hates. Just think of the outcry if Bush suggested the people should serve the state.
- pchristensen 19y ago
  "I think it's far better to have a leader that everyone hates." Unless that leader has given even the uninformed a reason to hate him ...
  - yummyfajitas 19y ago
    A charismatic leader can give the uninformed a reason to hate him, but it won't change their feelings. An example: a gay friend of mine dislikes Bush because he proposed a law against gay marriage (at least that is his stated reason). He has very strong positive feelings for (Bill) Clinton, in spite of the fact that Clinton actually passed a law against gay marriage (Defense of Marriage Act). His feelings persisted even after I pointed this out to him. Maybe I just have stupid friends (I don't think this is the case), but my general impression is that most people don't base their opinion of a politician on policy. Rather, they take their opinion on the policy from the party or politician they like.

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gruseom 19y ago

I once ran across a book with a similar theory. It was one of those hybrid self-help-business-motivational type books, called something like "You Have To Be Believed To Be Heard". I picked it up idly and happened on a really interesting analysis of presidential elections. The author's point was that the candidate who is better able to establish a positive emotional connection with voters almost always wins, and that ideology and policy had nothing to do with it. (I can't remember if he used the word "charisma".) His main thesis was that the primary emotional brain decides first whether or not it likes something, and only secondarily do rational considerations kick in; therefore, before communicating rationally one must, so to speak, establish positive credentials with the limbic system. The rest of the book was ostensibly about how to go about doing this. Unfortunately it didn't really deliver. But I remember watching the Bush/Kerry debates with this in mind and thinking, there is no rational basis on which Bush should be re-elected, yet if that book was right, Kerry's finished.

pchristensen 19y ago
Bullseye. And most people would rather like a folksy, funny guy that talks like they do instead of a rich, over-educated, boring guy.

pchristensen 19y ago

Interesting that this thread has about as many political comments as the rest of YCNews combined, but no one has complained. It's a good example of civil, intelligent political discussion.

gibsonf1 19y ago

Obama clearly wins the charisma contest. My wife has fallen for him, reading all his books, etc. This article "Women 'falling for Obama'" really reinforces PG's point http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2269063,00.html http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2269063...

jmtulloss 19y ago
I agree that Obama is more charismatic, but Hillary keeps getting the womens' vote (At least the white and hispanic ones). This primary is particularly interesting because you're not choosing between two rich white men. Suddenly there's a question of not just "Who has the most charisma?" but also "Who can I best identify with?" According to the states that have had primaries so far, blacks and white women overwhelmingly support the candidate that looks like them. Perhaps that's even more important that charisma? At the same time, I agree with PG that charisma doesn't play as big a part in primaries. Bill and Hillary are the leaders of the democratic party, so it makes sense that democrats would vote for Hillary rather than the more charismatic Obama.

ericb 19y ago

PG: Could attractiveness could be substituted for charisma effectively in your theory? Perhaps attractiveness is just an element of charisma, but if considered that way, there's a large body of psychological research that backs you up. For example, this abstract lists a only a really tiny sliver of the repeatable results: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-6543 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-6543(199224)62%3A4%3C413%3AEIAJOP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L

brlewis 19y ago
Here's a version of the link that news.yc will take: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-6543%28199224%2962%3A4%3C413%3AEIAJOP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-6543%28199224%2962%3A4... Paul Buchheit related this phenomenon to product design in http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/08/first-thing-that-you-need-to-understand.html http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/08/first-thing-that-yo...

foonamefoo 19y ago

I know Paul is of the opinion that tables are simpler than divs, but even tables don't have to be set to a fixed width in pixels!