Especially in the television era, it has seemed that a presidential candidate's personality has been of at least as much, if not greater importance than his or her policy ideas. If we look at the eventual winners of these presidential elections, there has appeared to be a fairly noticeable trend when it comes to the winners being more personable than their opponents.
If we just look at the most recent elections, Jimmy Carter was an extremely nice and likable guy. Ronald Reagan was incredibly personable. George H.W. Bush may not have possessed the charisma of Reagan, but was still more likable than his Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis. Bill Clinton, which some ladies can attest to, was more personable than H.W. Bush. Likewise, he was more likable than Bob Dole. Even though I didn't care for the guy's policies, George W. Bush came across as more likable than either Al Gore or John Kerry. Finally, in 2008, Barack Obama was definitely the more attractive candidate than John McCain.
That brings us to this year's election, where Obama takes on Mitt Romney. As far as the sense test(s) go, who wins? Obama, without question. This is one reason I'd be quite surprised if Romney won on November 6th. In fact, there's something else Romney possesses, which would make his victory over Obama in 2.5 weeks a bigger surprise to me than if any of those previously-mentioned losers of elections had defeated their opponent and here is why - Mitt Romney comes across as a complete a**hole.
Jimmy Carter may have come across as too nice when faced against Ronald Reagan. Michael Dukakis came across as too weak to some in comparison to George H.W. Bush. Bush came across as too dull compared to Clinton, as did Dole. Gore was viewed as boring when compared to George W. Bush. John Kerry came across as too serious and lawyerly when he faced Bush in 2004. John McCain had an old man's grumpy vibe to him. He may have been pleasant from the hours of noon to five, but not before or after then. None of these men came across as jerks, except for perhaps McCain in the early morning or mid-evening. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, might as well have "JERK" tattooed to his forehead and might as well change his name from Mitt Romney to Jerk Romney, because that's how he's viewed by many and I'm guessing a good 84.3% of people would just shrug their shoulders at the change and mumble, "That wasn't there/his name before? Could have fooled me..."
Most times when Romney smiles, it feels forced and comes across as a creepy makeup-less clown in a horror film. When he laughs, it sounds masked, like in something one would find in a store devoted to Halloween. When he tells a joke, it's so dark and unfunny, I wonder if he's about to say a eulogy for Charles Manson. When he just looks straight into the camera, I get this unnerving feeling that his head is about to explode at any second. When he talks, I feel like I'm about to get yelled at by a football coach who is about to overdose on steroids and just got finished listening to a death metal band by the name of "I Hate You All!" Yeah, I think if this whole president deal doesn't work out for Mr. Romney, he has a future in writing books - the first of which will be called, "A Dummy's Guide to Being a Major A**hole".
Comments
Post a Comment