I have personally known people who didn’t vote for Bush/Cheney because they thought Cheney was ugly. I knew a woman who voted for Bill Clinton because she liked his hair.
Our country is full of people who vote like it is American Idol. Or they vote because they do what their parents did. Or based on what the union wants.
Reagan succeeded because he was both likeable and the country was desperate to have a change from Carter. As a former democrat who voted for Reagan against Carter, I can tell you that Reagan didn’t scare me when I saw him, and I was so desperate I figured “He can’t be worse than Carter, and at least he won’t embarrass us.” That was my sole, uninformed reason for my Reagan vote at the age of 31. Subsequently I became more educated and never went back to voting democrat.
This is why that although Newt says some good things, to the uninformed he looks like a pudgy old guy with crazy ideas. It’s why Santorum hasn’t caught on, because the dim bulbs think he’s preachy. You really do have to think about stuff outside the realm of ideas when you are running for president. As I said last week, Gore won those debates on points, but he was such an obnoxious SOB and Bush was likeable and funny, so people went for Bush as a guy they could stand seeing on TV for the next 4 years.
Likeability is far more important than people realize, and our late friend Common Tator said it was THE deciding factor in elections since television came into wide=spread use. This is why I support Perry. I think if he makes it to the general, he will have a better chance against Obama.
But I will vote for my dog before I vote for Obama. And I will support whoever winds up being the GOP candidate.
AMEN!!!
Agree, Miss Marple, too many voters are uninformed and are persuaded by some pretty unimportant factors.....looks being chief among those.
Newt does have a problem in that area. When he pops a quick smile, it doesn’t necessarily invoke a warm fuzzy feeling. He has great potential, IMO, in steering this country back to fiscal sanity. We’ll see how he does in SC.
Santorum, IMO, has less of a problem in that area. He’s nice looking, younger. His preachiness may turn off some folks, like you say, especially former obama voters.
Perry would likely be a good president, but he just hasn’t recovered from the earlier debates.
I’m with you, I’ll vote for my cat before I vote for obama. Just hope this primary process goes on long enough to shake things out so we get the best candidate. Establishment GOP wants things called for Romney now, even though he’s only received a few votes, for one reason only. He is most likely to keep the status quo they’ve counted on all these years.