Are Presidential Campaigns About Ideas Or Personalities?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I you say ideas when was the last presidential campaign about ideas?

[TheUniverse]

1. Personalities.

Hillary Clinton certainly doesn't have the best ideas. I wonder if she even knows what her ideas are...

[bluetrain]

12. She doesn't have much of a personality, either. She's a brand name. That's it. /eom

[wyldwolf]

14. How much do they pay you, bluetrain, you're really all over the place!

[antigop]

16. Yep. Time Magazine referred to the "Clinton brand" July 16, 2007

Time Magazine

On the Road Again (The Bill and Hillary) show

Jul. 16, 2007 | By Mark Halperin
...First Couple hit the campaign trail in Iowa together to reformat the Clinton brand.

[fenriswolf]

2. cmon i mean the

current occupant of the white house was known as a "cowboy" cowboy is a term for a flamboyant personality, not one for thinking but one of action. clinton was a "skirt chaser" I mean just once i want a president who is an "egg head" or a " poly-sci geek" forget the testosterone I want the ideas please.

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

3. 1956 ----- TV changed everything.

HST would NEVER be elected today.

Sad !

[illinoisprogressive]

5. neither would FDR or Lincoln. especially in today's cable news shallowness

[illinoisprogressive]

4. They have been doing some studies on this. From what I've read

alot of voters go for likability and personality. they also look for other qualities. but, aside from activists, mostly democrats who care about issues, that falls low on the list. many say they want ideas but, that is not real.
it sounds good.
they go for either personality, they like someone familiar enough to feel comfortable, ect.
Experience? Well, look at where our real experienced candidates are. hillary doesn't really have experience.
Alot is subjective as the media spin is powerful in placing what candidates are like even if it is not true.

[Renew Deal]

6. Personalities

Until the next great depression.

[daninthemoon]

7. I was thinkin bout somethin earlier. Lately there were two links on

DU. One was a test that revealed your political personality type. The other advised you which candidates your views most matched. Wouldn't something like that be a hell of a good way to decide an election? Every voter answers a bunch of questions on your view of pertinent stuff, as agreed to by the parties. Every candidate answers the same "test" or "survey". Whichever candidate matches up the most items, with the most voters, would be the peoples true choice. No media slant. No personality factor. No height, race, or gender prejudice. A true majority opinion. I know it's not possible, but what if...

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. I'll go with what drives the stock market: The struggle of Greed and Fear

[MannyGoldstein]

9. Personality, Personality, Personality.

And people wonder why we're so fucked. Amazing.

[daninthemoon]

10. I still wouldn't want to have a beer with * . I also have a feeling he

would stick me with the tab.

[provis99]

11. personalities

When Campbell, Converse, Stokes and Miller did their landmark study on the American Voter in the 1950's, they found just under 20% voted on issues or policy. The other 80% voted for vapid, shallow reasons. Things haven't changed since then. People who post at DU are virtually all in the 20% category. Most of the news reports as if the nation were in the 20% category. Actually, voters are more likely to vote for a candidate they'd like to have a beer with, than it having anything to do with issues. Scary and depressing, but reality often is.;(

[GreenArrow]

13. Winston for Pres!

Winston Noble, '08!

[ChiciB1]

15. Presidential Campaigns Aren't About Anything BUT Money & Who You

know anymore. But I think it's WHO YOU KNOW first & MONEY 2nd, because Obama sure has raised a lot and from what ("the polls?????) tell us, he's running THIRD in IOWA!!

Or maybe it's simply about WHO sells their "soul" more competently!! I WISH I could say something "negative" about Hillary Clinton WITHOUT getting slammed, even HERE at a Democratic Forum WITHOUT seeing the LONG knives being drawn, but that too seems impossible!

I NEVER felt there were people here getting paid to promote ANY message, but I now think there really are some. When even those we considered to be UNITED with us show such VENOM and VITRIOL because we might support someone else besides her, I find it difficult to think otherwise!

And believe me, this IS NOT my WISH!! UNITY, is my preference but even I have been pulled into making replies to some that seem foreign to my nature. While I'm no shrinking violet, tell my WHY it's necessary to put up with such NASTINESS, and in fact have serious negative feelings about a "coroneted Queen" of the Democrats! A person I once thought would actually be the "best" choice we had. Now, she's my last, and each day I hear yet ANOTHER situation that she's involved or compromised with and STILL all I hear is... she's pretty much UNBEATABLE and basically running a GE campaign right now!

Unless I want to follow the "Pied Piper" down the lane, somehow I don't have a CLUE about anything! Democracy, what a strange concept!!

[antigop]

17. Marketing 101: "we often know brands simply because advertisers want us to."

Marketing 101:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,165365...
Why we buy
>>
Enter the world of marketing. The power of name recognition helps explain the multibillion-dollar business of plastering brand names on everything from ballpoint pens to NASCAR racers as well as the thriving cottage industry of reviving brands that have fallen out of mainstream use, like Ovaltine chocolate malt and Westinghouse televisions. "We tend to believe, If I've heard of before, it's probably because it's popular, and popular things are good," says Dan Goldstein, an assistant professor of marketing at London Business School.

...
That's true even when the stakes are high. A study published last year looked at how we choose an airline. Researchers at Germany's University of Cologne asked participants to pick between two carriers--one familiar and one unknown. Predictably, an overwhelming number chose the airline they recognized. What was surprising was that many stuck with it even as the researchers gave negative cues about its safety. With three troubling bits of information--like past accidents--67% of study participants remained loyal to the airline they knew.
>>

[antigop]

18. Did Mark Penn call elections "market share"?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1659707,00.html

>>
Penn, who is now steering Hillary Clinton's White House run, writes that these niches can swing elections, echoing the way Republicans microtargeted the electorate in 2004. The way to win an election--or market share--he says, is to ignore big red-vs.-blue-style trends and decipher the nuance underneath.
>>

Not a direct quote -- what did he really say?

[Apollo11]

19. In 2004: Bush had no idea at all, Kerry had way too many.

Sometimes John Kerry had several different ideas on the same question! ;-)

[robcon]

20. More about personalities than ideas.

When you vote for a president you are voting a level of trust. In almost every president's term of office there are unexpected (perhaps unknowable) events that define the presidency of that individual. The president's reaction to those events is what makes or breaks that president's administration.

I think most people develop a trust in the person they vote for to act wisely in those unknowable circumstances, and that is not a vote for ideas, but a vote for a person or personality.

[bluetrain]

21. I'd argue that our "personalities" are defined by our ideas/ideals and the reactions

we get to them from the world. If we're talking about manufactured PERSONALITIES, still, there's got to be a hint of the original person in there even if it's a backward mirror glance -- which in this age of PR is a lot more likely than a direct stare.

I agree with the poster who said they'd love it if we could determine these races by blind voting on the issues themselves against the candidates own blind votes. All at the same time on the same day. No campaigning, no PR, just the issues. And a 90 day clause in there to boot anyone who didn't live up to their votes on the questionnaire. I don't think that's in the Constitution, though, unfortunately. And who would determine the phrasing of the questions?

[Forkboy]

22. Both.

They tend to be intertwined with one another.However, I believe a bad idea goes further with a good personality than a good idea will go with a bad personality.That's why none of my good ideas go anywhere. :D