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goofus-and-gallant

I’m a big believer in the “charisma theory” of Presidential elections.  To summarize, the idea is that the more charismatic candidate always wins. It has held in every election since 1992, and examples can be found going back to 1960.  In fact, the only instance I know of in which the more charismatic candidate lost was in 1896, before TV or radio existed.

One curious thing about charismatic candidates is that seemingly they always go up against non-charismatic opponents–people who may be good, studious, diligent policy wonks, but who are also stiff and boring.  Or, to use the words of Paul Graham, the creator of the theory, “people who are earnest, but dull.”

Think about it: the big knock on Hillary Clinton was that she “couldn’t connect with people”–versus Trump, who could at least connect with angry white men.

Same deal in 2012: Obama was one of the most charismatic politicians in history, and Romney was famously stiff and awkward.

Again, 2008: Charismatic Obama against boring, tired John McCain.

It goes on. In 2004, folksy “just a regular guy” George W. Bush vs. famously boring speaker John Kerry.

2000: Folksy Bush beats dull, awkward Al Gore.

1996: Legendarily charismatic Bill Clinton beats old, tired Bob Dole.

It goes on and on. Now and then you get elections where neither candidate was charismatic (Bush vs. Dukakis, Nixon vs. McGovern and Humphrey) but you seemingly never get two charismatic candidates running against each other. (Imagine what Trump vs. Obama would have been like!)

That seems highly improbable when you consider that there are lots of charismatic politicians, and that charismatic politicians have an innate advantage over non-charismatic ones. They should be running against each other all the time. What’s going on?

One possibility is that charisma is a winner-take-all sort of thing, in that whichever candidate is more charismatic automatically makes the opponent seem stiff and boring by comparison.  So if A is more charismatic than B, B looks boring, but B might be more charismatic than C, and make C look boring.

But it doesn’t seem to work this way.  Nixon lost to Kennedy on charisma, but he beat Humphrey and McGovern without getting any more charismatic.  Charisma simply wasn’t a factor in those elections.

Another possible explanation is that when one party has been out of power for a while, they become more likely to nominate a charismatic candidate. (Charismatic candidates usually start as long-shot outsiders, e.g. Obama and Trump) Similarly, when a party has been in power for a while, they are more likely to nominate a careerist politician who has paid their dues in the party. (e.g. McCain, H. Clinton)

If that’s the case, it apparently runs in an eight year cycle, conveniently matching up with Presidential term limits, and thus preventing possible “high-charisma showdowns”, as would have happened with Clinton vs. Bush, or Obama vs. Trump.

This could be the case, although it seems like an awfully big coincidence that it takes almost exactly eight years for one party to get a charismatic candidate, and that the other party seemingly forgets this lesson every eight years.

What are your thoughts on this pattern?

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{Sung to the tune of “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General“}

I am the very model of a charismatic candidate,
I have thwarted ev’rything the GOP has planned to date.
From starting as a dark horse, I’ve become the odds-on favorite
Saying I will build a wall and then force Mexico to pay for it.
And though Establishment Republicans think I am despicable
Ev’ry charge they level at me has proved totally unstickable.
And even though I’ve said disgusting things about my progeny—
And made so many statements that are dripping with misogyny–
By thwarting ev’ry action that the GOP has planned to date,
I’ve proved myself the model of a charismatic candidate.

My “Apprenticeship” in showbiz has undoubtedly done well for me–
I am so telegenic, all the major networks fell for me.
My domineering manner plays so well when I’m debating folks
It doesn’t even matter that I sometimes tell degrading jokes.
Believe me, folks, I’m so very, very big-league entertaining
That I have no need coherent policies to be maintaining.
I’ll be so much like Reagan, it will make your head spin, I insist–
Heads will spin so much it will all be like the film The Exorcist.
Since I’ve thwarted ev’rything the GOP has planned to date.
I am the very model of a charismatic candidate.

 
In fact, when I know whether Judges “sign” on “bills” or not—
When I’ve decided what to do with all the immigrants we’ve got–
When I’ve some idea what is and isn’t Constitutional–
When I’ve proved my economic plans are not delusional—
When I have shown I will not always act impulsively–
When I behave towards women just a little less repulsively–
In short, when I have turned into my very living opposite–
You’ll say a better candidate has never run for office yet!
Though all my civic knowledge is just stuff I learned in real estate,
I am sure a brand-new wall will make our location really great.
And since a country is the only thing I’ve yet to brand to date,
I am the very model of a charismatic candidate!

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I know a guy who’s charismatic as can be:

Everyone he meets is sure that he’s all right.

The kind of guy that they all would like to be

Is exactly what he is–at least, upon first sight.

When he’s among conservatives,

He seems like a regular Reaganite.

But when among the liberals he lives

He looks for social revolutions to ignite.

 

CHORUS:

Oh, everybody loves a charismatic guy, you see;

He’s everything that you could want a chap to be!

His political skills are really quite sublime;

He fools all of the people all the time!

 

With the fellas, he’s a manly man’s man;

Drinkin’ beer and talkin’ sports and trucks to ride–

But when he’s with the ladies, oh, for sure he can

Get in touch with his female side.

When he’s discussed ‘twixt hims and hers–

Though on specifics they may disagree–

Everyone on both sides readily concurs:

“He’s just the kind of man for me!”

 

(CHORUS)

 

So, no one knows exactly what his deal is–

His convictions and beliefs are a bit unclear.

But still, there’s no denying his appeal is

So overwhelming he just has to be sincere!

I once spoke to him, hoping to convey

How nice to have these diff’rent personae.

And he replied “It’s just that I can never say

For sure which one of them is me!”

 

(CHORUS)

 

[NOTE: You may ask “is this about a particular person?” Answer: No. It’s about a particular type of person.]

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Now then, as I was saying, charisma is what wins Presidential elections.  The first debate proved this point quite conclusively; as Mitt Romney won it in the opinion of almost everyone simply because he seemed more energetic than the President did.  Naturally, I was shocked that Obama did so poorly, but nonetheless the general principle that charisma wins elections was upheld.

Obama returned to form, though, in the second debate and I think won it despite Romney’s best efforts to weird him out by stealing his material.  Obama is more likeable than Romney in general; so I really cannot think what happened in the first debate.  I still believe that Obama will win because of his charm, and leave the awkward, sometimes nervous looking former Governor wondering what happened.

Of course, in the matter of what they proposed to do things were very different.  Mitt Romney threw almost all conservative ideas out, and simply mimicked Obama to a great extent.  He talked about how rich people  do not need help; the middle class does, and spoke fondly of the need for government regulations.  In the second debate, he came out in favor of affirmative action, albeit awkwardly.  In the upcoming foreign policy debate, he will probably quote Howard Zinn approvingly.

Romney won the first debate, but in so doing he essentially promised to be super moderate–to out-Obama Obama, as it were.  Maybe Romney will just say whatever he thinks is likely to be popular at any given moment.  Or maybe there is a conscious and deliberate plan whereby Romney talks like the consummate “centrist” and then governs like a supply-side Republican.  But either way, the Etch-A-Sketch strategy worked like a charm.

In a way, I think these debates have been the culmination of what I talked about in this post.  There are two Rockefeller Republicans in these debates; one of them simply happens to be a Democrat.  There are differences in their personal style, in their manner, and in degrees of Rockefeller Republicanism, but that is what they both are campaigning as.

Obama is (usually) more charismatic, and so he gets the advantage among swing voters.  Of the remaining votes, I assume that most will be cast based on party loyalty.  The Democrats will vote for Obama and hope he will adhere more closely to their platform, even though he will still face opposition in Congress.  The Republicans will vote Romney because they want Obama out, and will vote automatically for the GOP candidate whoever he happens to be.

It bears repeating that Romney is probably not actually a Rockefeller Republican; he just plays one on TV.  He played a much more socially conservative kind of Republican in the primaries, and then relied on the public’s short attention span to affect his metamorphosis.   Most likely, he is a George W. Bush Republican: almost all of his policies suggest that he supports the same tax cuts and military interventionism that the last Republican did.  But saying that won’t win him any allies.

I think that Obama, meanwhile, would like to be more liberal on government spending, raising taxes, and so on.  He probably wants to be an FDR Democrat on the economy, but the political terrain is such that he can’t find a way to do that.  For one thing, I think he is more interested in achieving bipartisanship than FDR was.

Ultimately, I think Obama wins this on personal appeal.  Romney, outside of one fluky debate, seems rather arrogant and condescending.  Even in the debate he “won”, he seemed arrogant with the way he talked over the moderator.

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Longtime readers know that I reject the typical left-right political spectrum in favor of a trichotomy of political philosophies called “cosmopolitanism”, “nationalism”, and “materialism”.

At present in the United States, we have a choice between a cosmopolitan, Obama, and a materialist, Romney.  The curious part is that Romney must try to persuade the nationalists that he is one of them, despite considerable evidence to the contrary.  He has not done a very good job of it so far, although he is bound to get some of the nationalist vote simply for not being a cosmopolitan.

You may ask: “why isn’t there a nationalist candidate?”  Well, there was. Rick Santorum was his name, but he failed to get the Republican nomination.  So now, in another renewal of the delicate alliance that is the Republican party, Romney has to try to get the people who didn’t want him and wanted Santorum to vote for him.

Romney has been fairly socially liberal himself in the past, and he now has to try to assure nationalists that this won’t happen again, whether by blaming circumstance, claiming his hand was forced, or saying he’s changed his mind and/or heart on social issues like gay marriage, abortion, contraception and gun control.  Some politicians might be able to get away with this sort of thing.  Not Romney, though, because he is not charismatic and hence people do not innately trust him.

Candidates like Reagan, and to a lesser extent, George W. Bush had the ability to use their charm to cover for the contradictions in nationalist and materialist philosophies,  and thus hold the voting coalition together through their personal popularity.  Paul Graham wrote in his influential essay on charisma in Presidential elections:

The charisma theory may also explain why Democrats tend to lose presidential elections. The core of the Democrats’ ideology seems to be a belief in government. Perhaps this tends to attract people who are earnest, but dull…

A different flavor of the same idea: The post-1970s Republicans need to have the more charismatic candidate to win, because otherwise the differences in the Republican coalition become apparent and the party fractures.  (The Graham essay is what first interested me in this topic, and I consider it required reading for those curious about this subject.)

This is why likeability is everything for Romney, and history suggests that it is something which cannot be learned; so if he does not have it now, he never will.  For that reason, there is very little reason to think Romney will win in November.

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You know that “charisma” stuff I go on about all the time on here?  The quality that is more important than any other to winning elections?

Romney doesn’t have it.

I know, that’s not news.  But it never ceases to amaze me how singularly lacking he is in this quality.

I was listening to a snippet of some speech of his on the radio.  It bored me.  That’s a bad sign for him; if he were a half-way charismatic fellow, he’d have had me outraged.  All the charismatic people on the Republican side can make do that.  But Romney is just dull.

You don’t even have to consider the content of their speeches–and Heaven knows, too many voters probably don’t–to see the difference.  Obama sounds passionate and fired up when he speaks, whereas Romney’s voice sort of cracks whenever he tries to raise his voice to a powerful crescendo.

Sure, tons of people will vote for Romney because they hate Obama.  People are either going to vote for Obama or against him, but nobody is going to vote for Mitt Romney.  He is just hoping that enough people will hate the incumbent to vote him in.  That was the strategy for the last uncharismatic guy from Massachusetts, too.

And now there are rumors that his campaign plans to “avoid John McCain’s mistake”–to wit, make a dull pick, without any charisma, the opposite of Sarah Palin.  This is also a terrible idea, though speaking as one who hopes Romney does not get elected, it pleases me greatly.

I suspect that, in the end, Palin helped McCain’s 2008 campaign.  Yes, you read that right.  It is true that she made a fool of herself in her interviews, but what of that?   The Republican base does not believe anything in the mainstream press, and consequently explained that away as “media bias”.

You say: “but she alienated the moderates”.  No, she didn’t.  The moderates were already alienated, because they were going to vote for Obama no matter what.  No one except a die-hard Republican was going to vote for John McCain, and even they didn’t like him much.  Palin served to energize the only group which would even consider voting for John McCain.  From a purely strategic point of view, she was a good pick.  A rotten candidate, but a good pick.  Curious how that can happen.

Anyway, if the Romney people do decide to double down on dullness, I think it will signify that the people running his campaign are basically counting on a massive economic disaster to make Obama unpopular.  And I suppose that could happen.  Kind of sad, though, if your entire campaign depends on something like that.

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Paul Krugman is excited that the press is calling Romney out for cherry-picking data. Krugman also believes they are treating Romney with a more critical eye than they did George W. Bush.

And he’s right. But, I suspect the reason for this is a rather depressing one: Romney is less charismatic than Bush was. This, rather than any new-found commitment to truth on the part of the national press, is what has caused this. Both Romney and Bush are rich sons of politicians, but Bush could more credibly pull off the “I’m just like the average Joe”  act. Whereas Romney just seems like an awkward rich guy when he tries that.

In terms of both who they are and, what is more important, what they mean to do to the country, Bush and Romney are quite similar in my eyes. The differences are superficial, but superficial differences are, as it happens, quite important in Presidential campaigns these days.

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Mitt Romney has acquired something of a reputation for trying to be “all things to all people”, that he will say absolutely whatever it takes to get elected. The “Etch-a-Sketch” comment only reinforced this notion. As Andrew Sullivan put it:

It sums up every single worry about Romney in one metaphor: that he is a machine, that he can say or stand for anything, and that, from time to time, depending on which segment of the population he is appealing to, he will simply become something completely different.

It does remind me of another quote by a politician:

I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.

The politician in question was one Barack Obama, in his book The Audacity of Hope.

Republicans are probably thinking that this just goes to prove the existence of the “liberal media”. They would be wrong. What it goes to prove is the power of charisma. Obama’s statement is entirely accurate and, what is more, it is true without any effort on Obama’s part. Whereas Romney has to twist in the political winds, Obama gets stuff projected onto him effortlessly. This is one of the differences between a charismatic politician and an un-charismatic one.

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Mitt Romney may rest easy knowing that he is assured of the Republican nomination. That much is clear.

Watching Romney fight for the nomination has been like watching a football team with a mediocre offense and terrible defense scratch and claw its way to a Conference championship, knowing all the time that they’ll have to go on to play a team with a great defense and a record-setting offense. Watching someone fight to win the chance to get beat on a larger stage is a curious feeling.

I’m still nervous, no question. I am worried that the Democrats might make some sort of costly mistake. That’s the trouble with being the favorite; the pressure is on you not to screw up. Suppose Obama goes and makes accurate statements about guns and religion again. Suppose Biden tries to make “gird your loins” the campaign slogan. When you ought to win, it’s quite nerve-racking.

I seem confident, don’t I? Too confident, you think? Maybe even arrogant? My liberal friends tell me I am these. I don’t think this can be right, though, because I am a pessimist. I’ve said so before. So, how can I have such confidence in my side’s ability to win this election?

As always, I believe the election will be decided by charisma. Read any of my articles tagged with this word and you will see what I mean. This article from the satirical paper The Onion illustrates the problem in a nutshell. Whereas the phenomenon described in that article more-or-less did occur around Obama in 2008, the idea of it occurring around Romney in 2012 is simply laughable.

Having the ability to make people like you instinctively is a powerful asset in politics. Romney does not have it. Whatever he has accomplished he has done with either political know-how or vast amounts of money. The charismatic approach is not open to him. Obama, on the other hand, is very charismatic. Thus, this is a truly dreadful matchup for Mr. Romney.

He might be able to win against an opponent like Al Gore or John Kerry. In such a contest, money and the Republican political machine would be deciding factors. But not against Obama. For someone as charismatic as he is, all television coverage is like free advertising. Just seeing the man talk subtly makes people more sympathetic to him. This largely negates Romney’s financial advantages, since financial advantages are used to purchase advertising with the goal of persuading voters.

The Republican propagandists will certainly give it the old college try, but there is little they can say about Obama that they weren’t saying in 2008. It failed then, and it is unlikely to work now. It is true that Romney does not have the problem of separating himself from an unpopular sitting President like McCain did, but he suffers from what may be an even worse problem: the suspicion of clandestine liberalism which hangs over him.

It is commonly known that Romney must distance himself from things he himself did in the past, to try to erase this suspicion. So far, it hasn’t been working, and the problem has now been famously compounded by his adviser’s “Etch-a-Sketch” comment. In truth, the most revealing thing about this comment is that it seemingly offers us a window into his campaign’s plans. When asked if his client had been forced too far to the “right”, his adviser implied they planned to correct this move in the Fall. But if Romney will revert to his “centrist”, Massachusetts Republican ways in the Fall, it may become apparent to the voting public that Obama himself is not a “far-leftist” at all, but rather “centrist” himself. At which point, it will be difficult for the voters to see much difference between Obama and Romney, except that Obama remains the more charismatic.

There is always the chance of some surprising revelation, or some disastrous gaffe by Obama or some other Democrat. But as things stand now, I think it is highly probable Obama will win re-election easily.