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Originally Posted by suzzer99
Is there one of those candidates I posted that you were alive for the election - where you would say no the loser had more charisma? I've been aware since Carter/Ford and I believe that not one would I have said that before hand.
I mean - Reagan, Slick Willie, Obama - we can all agree those are oozing charisma right? And GWB compared to Kerry or Gore? Ok maybe if Gore won we'd think he had more Charisma. I'll give you that's somewhat close. But Kerry? No way.
The most interesting ones are Nixon, Carter and HW, since they're the ones who have both won and lost an election, unless I'm missing one. When you look at Nixon's loss to Kennedy, remember too that that election was whisker-close. I'll cheerfully say that JFK was
manifestly more charismatic than Nixon, which is sort of a problem for the charisma theory given how close the race was.
None of which is to suggest that charisma isn't extremely helpful if you're trying to become POTUS, of course.