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Candidate Character Traits in Presidential Elections
As the 2012 presidential election campaign unfolded, it became clear that the Democratic and Republican candidates held clear and distinct positions on a wide range of policy issues. With the U.S. economy stuck in first gear, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney argued the merits of austerity versus stimulus and of continued tax cuts for everyone versus raising taxes on the wealthy. The two candidates vigorously debated health care policy, with Obama defending his signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, and Romney promising to repeal “Obamacare” as soon as he occupied the White House. Equally sharp differences over energy and environmental policies divided the candidates. Given the economic issues facing the country, it was not surprising that social issues received less attention in the campaign, but the candidates nevertheless had quite different views on these issues as well. Yet with all of these policy differences between the candidates, many political commentators saw the election as being decided just as much on the basis of the personal characteristics of the candidates. It was not just a question of which direction voters wanted the ship of state to sail; it was also a question of whom the voters wanted as the captain of the ship. Voters, many commentators argued, were inclined to vote for the candidate whom they most liked.
For President Obama, pundits considered whether his personal likability, captured in the president’s persistently strong favorable ratings, would be enough to overcome the weak economy. According to New York Times columnist David Brooks, Obama’s leadership style, which Brooks described as “hypercompetitive, restrained, not given to self-doubt, rarely self-indulgent,” was keeping him competitive for a second term despite circumstances that normally make leaders look weak, thus sealing their electoral fates.1 If Obama’s personal strengths were undermined by the weak economy, the media described the challenger, former Massachusetts governor Romney, as the president’s mirror image: a candidate whose personal liabilities diminished his party’s golden opportunity to defeat the incumbent president. Another Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, wrote that a key distinction between the candidates, “one that will probably decide this presidential race, is this: Barack Obama is able to convey an impression of likability to voters.” Dowd argued that the Obama versus Romney election matched two introverts, but that a “graceful introvert beats an awkward one every time.”2
Media pundits identified several problems with Romney’s character, at least as it was perceived by the voters. Timothy Egan wrote that focus groups perceived Romney as “a tin man, a shell, an empty suit, vacuous …”3 Dowd saw Romney as having “meager social and political agility” and being “banally handsome with an empty look.”4 Some commentators used the term “robot” or “android” to describe Romney. Besides lacking in warmth and likability, Romney also was widely portrayed as unable to understand or empathize with the problems of ordinary people. Two Washington Post journalists wrote that “Romney must—MUST—close the empathy gap to win this fall.”5 Moreover, some pundits thought that Romney did not seem to be a strong leader to many voters. In August 2012, Newsweek reprised its controversial 1987 cover story about then Vice President George H. W. Bush titled “The Wimp Factor,” only this time Romney was the subject. The article claimed that in the pantheon of Republican presidential tough guys, Romney fell well short of the likes of Reagan, George W. Bush, and even the latter’s once impugned father who, “looks like Dirty Harry Callahan compared to Romney, who spent his war (Vietnam) in—ready?—Paris. Where he learned … French” (emphasis in original).6
While the media consensus was that Obama was ahead of Romney on character traits, the president was not without his faults, according to several columnists. Dowd described both candidates as “cold, deliberative fish, self-regarding elitists, with … trouble connecting at times.”7 Mark Shields felt that neither candidate possessed any humility or humor, in contrast to many other successful presidential candidates, such as Reagan or the younger Bush.8 Obama’s poor performance in the first presidential debate led some pundits to conclude that he did not seem to be a strong leader, something that could cost him dearly in the election.9 But as election day approached and it became clear that Obama would triumph, the prevailing view in the media was that voters found Obama more likable than Romney. In particular, pundits argued that Romney failed to define himself early in the campaign, thereby allowing Democrats to create an unflattering caricature of an out-of-touch plutocrat and rapacious capitalist. A lengthy post-election analysis in the Boston Globe concluded that one of the Romney campaign team’s gravest errors was the “failure, until too late in the campaign, to sell voters on the candidate’s personal qualities and leadership gifts.”10
Media accounts of presidential elections routinely emphasize the role of the likability and perceived character of the presidential candidates. Voters react to the candidates as people, evaluating their character traits, and thus making the presidential vote a very personal one. They embrace candidates they see as honest and competent leaders whom they can relate to personally, and they reject candidates they see as untrustworthy, as uninspiring, or as lacking in warmth. Given this perspective, it is not surprising that both media interpretations of campaigns as they are happening and media explanations of election results often stress how well the candidates appeal to voters on a personal level. In the eyes of many pundits, defeats in presidential elections are frequently a result of the personal failings of the losing candidates, while victories reflect how well the winning candidates connected with the voters.
As in 2012, the 2008 campaign focused a great deal on the character of the major party nominees, Obama and John McCain. The media and the public paid particular attention to the likelihood that the candidates would provide strong leadership in troubled times, along with the degree to which they could relate, in both personal and policy terms, to regular folks, represented by the surprising and somewhat amusing addition of “Joe the Plumber” to the campaign trail.11 Furthermore, there were myriad compelling contrasts between the life experiences and perceived personal traits of the two candidates, even setting aside the fact that Obama was the first African American presidential candidate nominated by a major political party. No presidential campaign in the nation’s history has featured a larger gap in the ages of the two candidates. Moreover, while Obama and McCain spent significant and formative parts of their lives outside the United States, they did so facing dramatically different circumstances: the former as a child in Indonesia, the latter as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The differences in their personal narratives naturally led voters to see differences in the character traits of the candidates. By the end of the campaign, and depending on one’s point of view, Obama was either calm or distant, visionary or naive, thoughtful or elitist. McCain, on the other hand, was either decisive or impulsive, experienced or old, a gutsy maverick or an all-too-typical insider.
Journalists often focused on small and sometimes trivial incidents to illustrate prevailing views of each candidate’s character. Since Obama’s lack of substantial political experience was a major theme in the coverage of the campaign, minor statements by the Democratic candidate that might indicate that he was not ready to assume the presidency were highlighted in the media. Reporters also ridiculed Obama’s inept attempt at bowling, implying that he was a prissy elitist, which also fit a prevailing narrative.12 Obama’s failure early in the campaign to wear a flag pin on his suit lapel led to questions about his patriotism, while McCain’s failure to do so did not produce similar speculation.13 The difference, of course, was that McCain had a well-deserved reputation for patriotism, whereas Obama had no military service, a Kenyan father, and lived in Indonesia for part of his childhood. Many of McCain’s actions and statements did receive sharp scrutiny. For example, when McCain was unable to state how many houses he owned, many journalists latched onto that failure as an indicator of his inability to understand the economic problems of the average citizen.14
The focus on candidate character traits was not limited to the musings of journalists. The presidential campaigns also advanced character-based storylines. Republicans raised questions about Obama’s lack of experience and leadership skills, traits that many in the press and political circles agreed were McCain strengths. The McCain campaign even tried to turn the large and enthusiastic crowds drawn to Obama into a negative by arguing that Obama’s appeal was that of a celebrity without substance. On the other hand, the Obama campaign deftly used the deepening economic crisis to portray McCain’s “suspension” of his campaign and threat to skip the first debate as ill-considered and erratic, the latter a word that also served as a none-too-subtle reminder of McCain’s advancing age.
The 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns were not unusual in their emphasis on the personal traits of the candidates. The 2004 campaign was much the same. A common theme in the media coverage of the election was that President George Bush had a shallow understanding of policy issues. He was firm in his positions, making him decisive, but he arrived at his positions without a careful consideration of various alternatives. The Democratic candidate, John Kerry, was repeatedly characterized as a flip-flopper by the Republican campaign, an accusation that was frequently picked up in media coverage of the election. Moreover, Kerry was frequently described by commentators as too cold and too elitist, someone who could not connect with the common man, while Bush, on the other hand, was seen as a warm individual, someone to whom the ordinary person could relate.15 Sometimes journalists latched onto small incidents to illustrate these points. For example, commentators lampooned Kerry when he improperly ordered a Philly cheese steak, choosing Swiss cheese instead of Cheez Whiz, and then compounded his error by nibbling daintily at his lunch, so as not to jeopardize his expensive shirt and tie.16
As in other election years, the discussions in the media in 2004 were reinforced by campaigns that were quite willing to focus on the personal traits of the candidates, either emphasizing the positive personal traits of their candidate or attacking the opposing candidate for character deficiencies. For example, when Kerry windsurfed off Nantucket Island during a brief respite from the campaign trail, the Bush campaign produced a memorable advertisement that turned Kerry’s vacation exercise into a metaphor for both indecisiveness and all-too-highbrow recreational pursuits.17 Recognizing that the voters had doubts about Bush’s competence, Democrats attempted to exploit those concerns with an ad that showed the president responding to a press conference question about any mistakes that he had made while in office; in the ad, Bush is shown stating repeatedly that he cannot think of any mistakes, while messages about the failure of the war in Iraq flash across the screen.18
The character traits of the presidential candidates may have played an even greater role in the 2000 election, at least in popular accounts. A late September New York Times Magazine cover story went so far as to describe that year’s election as boiling down to “The Stiff Guy vs. the Dumb Guy.”19 The “dumb guy,” Republican candidate George W. Bush, was characterized by many commentators as amiable but uniformed.20 Some questioned his qualifications to be president in spite of his election and reelection as governor of the nation’s second-largest state. During both the primary and general elections, Bush frequently seemed to have a shallow understanding of national and foreign affairs, and he was prone to verbal errors in his public speaking—for example, referring to Greeks as “Grecians” and describing hidden messages in advertisements as “subliminable.”21 The “stiff guy,” Democratic candidate Al Gore, was described as extremely knowledgeable but passionless and aloof, similar to the characterization of Kerry four years later, as well as Dukakis in 1988.22 Pundits frequently labeled him a “policy wonk” who lacked personal warmth and charm. During the debates, he displayed his mastery of the details of public policy. On the other hand, this knowledge of governmental affairs, especially as it was displayed in the first debate, during which Gore, impatient with his opponent’s answers, sighed theatrically and quite audibly, led many to characterize Gore as pedantic and condescending.23 Additionally, Gore was portrayed as someone who would exaggerate or distort the truth to make himself look good. An example of this supposed tendency was the charge that Gore said that he invented the Internet, a claim that itself was a misrepresentation of what he really said, but one that was repeated so often that it became widely accepted as fact.
During the general election campaign, misstatements by Gore or Bush that fit the above stereotypes were highlighted by reporters. Small exaggerations or distortions of the facts by Gore were scrutinized and publicized. For example, in one debate, Gore stated that as vice president he toured fire-ravaged areas of Texas with the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, when in fact he was accompanied by the regional director of FEMA—a small inaccuracy that was irrelevant to the point that Gore was making, but an example seized on by...
