The Likeability Factor

There may be an element of post-hoc reasoning to it, but I have a theory that the most likeable presidential candidate wins the general election. That’s because citizens have come to see the president in such personal terms over the course of the past half century as first radio, then television have promoted a direct, seemingly unmediated relationship between the president and the people.

So, moving back through time, the winner of each presidential election since at least 1976 appears to have been the more likeable guy or, in Ronald Reagan’s case, the actor playing the role of the more likeable guy!

Thus, it is a little disheartening that the top two Democrats are John Kerry and Howard Dean. Although Dean has been savaged for his apparently unpresidential temperament, Kerry just seems downright unlikeable. See the article in this week’s Newsweek and the Slate piece on Kerry's "mystifying appeal".

The obvious likeability choice is John Edwards. Newsweek struggles to find anything bad to say about him other than a vague story about him playing hardball with a defendant. See also Slate's treatment of Edwards.