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Comment by staunch | Hacker News Reader

Seems obvious to me. Obama by 100 miles. Bill Clinton is even more charismatic, but Hilary alone is not even in the same league. McCain isn't either.

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McCain is pretty darn charismatic. Not in the "I'm a nice guy" sense, but in the "I'm authentic" sense. The former is more universally appealing, but the latter certainly has legs. Bush.v2 seemed to convey more of the authenticity, but he would have lost to Bill Clinton. That's what amazing to me about 2000 - Bill Clinton wins that contest, blue dress and all. Still, if there's no blue dress Gore wins in a landslide.

The McCain-Obama matchup this fall is interesting, for the contrasts, but I have to agree that Obama has the once-in-a-generation kind of charisma.

"Bill Clinton is even more charismatic..."

I would say that, in 2007/2008, Obama is far more charismatic. Bill Clinton has tried to inject his "charisma" into this campaign on his wife's behalf and has not made a dent in the "charsima gap" between his wife and Obama.

Trying to compare charisma of 1992 Bill to 2008 Barack is like trying to athletes across eras. Different issues, different prevailing attitudes among the populace, etc.

Friends who have met Bill Clinton in person say he makes you feel great/important even though they only meet him for mere seconds. I mean, he is an ex-POTUS and he makes you feel like the star. If that isn't charisma, what is?

Obama is off the charts, but let's be honest, McCain can hold his own in any charisma contest. Do you ever wonder why you never hear about John McCain's ex? This is from a 2000 profile:

  Mr. McCain abandoned his wife, who had reared their three children while he was in Vietnamese prisons, and he then began his political career with the resources of his new wife's family.

  Yet although Mr. McCain's children and some friends were angry and disappointed with him at the time, they rally around him today. No candidate could be luckier in his choice of an ex-wife than Senator McCain, and he must be the only politician around who could cheat on his wife and divorce her and still get her support and her campaign contributions today. Even her friends rave about him.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B02EFDF1439F...

Why does everyone seem to forget that Bill Clinton won only in the context of a strong third-party candidate? If not for Ross Perot's run in 1992, Clinton would almost certainly have lost to Bush senior---and taken down the "charisma wins" theory with him.

While Bush senior might have won without Perot, I don't think it takes down the "charisma wins" argument, since I don't think it applies in elections where there's an incumbent running. The incumbent has a clear advantage, and is presumably already somewhat charismatic since he got elected the first time. While Clinton was certainly more charismatic than Bush, Bush's incumbent status should have been enough to overcome this and win.

Do you have a source for this? Every analysis of exit polls I have seen (for example: http://www.fairvote.org/plurality/perot.htm) shows that Perot split the votes fairly evenly.

Strangely, I can't find much either way. I thought there was a clear case for Bush over Clinton absent Perot, but I may well be wrong.

I also worded the original comment too strongly. Clearly, charisma is a big factor in modern elections, and one data point isn't enough to disprove anything in any case. Concluding that "it's charisma, stupid" does seem to rely on very small-number statistics, though.

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