The Likeability Factor

"I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life."
-Hillary Clinton

A Democratic caucus-goer supporting presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) takes cookies provided by the Clinton campaign during the Iowa caucus 212th precinct of West Des Moines at Valley High School in Iowa January 3, 2008.
REUTERS/Jim Bourg

What is it about each of the candidates that makes them "likeable"? Makes them connect with voters? Who has it, and who doesn't?

Hillary seems difficult to like. I've heard Michael Medved, who knew her personally back in college, say that in person, she can be likeable, and readily admits this contrasts to her public persona and image. Of course, if I remember from reading "Dereliction of Duty", Lt. Col. "Buzz" Patterson did not particularly find her "personable" nor "endearing".

Barack Obama, no question, has the likeability factor.

Mike Huckabee also has it.

Mitt Romney comes across as "too perfect", "too fabricated" to me. I think he could be likeable; but for some reason, he's failed to "connect" with voters. He's like a Ken doll: good looks, perfect hair, handsome family, wealth, privilege, prestige; just flawless, in a way. Yet, maybe this is the problem? He's just too perfect and too good to be true, that no one trusts him. He's outspent Huckabee by about 20 to 1, but is in a fight for his life, to remain "the anointed one". One thing that has turned me off to him, is the attacks on his fellow Republican candidates. He can excuse and justify the behavior all he wants; but to me, it still comes across as petty and insecure.

The attacks and counterattcks between him and the other candidates, like Huckabee, merely weakens all the candidates.

If attacked, the presidential candidate should remain "above the fray". Let the pundits and bloggers who support them be the ones to fling the mud and expose the spin on candidate records.

I want a real leader. Someone who behaves.....presidential.



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