
It's Charisma, Stupid (2004) - jackweirdy
http://www.paulgraham.com/charisma.html
======
encoderer
I want to nod along with this, but I can't shake the feeling that it's just
too simplistic, with too small of a dataset. So Johnson was supposedly more
charismatic than Goldwater, and that's why he won, not because Kennedy had
been murdered 11 months earlier? Nixon beat Humphrey because he avoided a
heads-up showdown, not because Humphrey had just served as Johnson's yes-man
for several unpopular years in Vietnam? Carter beat Ford because he was
charismatic, not because Ford pardoned Nixon and pissed everybody off? Reagan
won because of his charisma, not because the country was mired in a years-long
hostage crisis? Bush the First's loss didn't have anything to do with the
worst recession in a decade?

Al Gore and John Kerry... I'll give you those, and it's not surprising then
that he wrote this article in 2004, but I think in other instances it's curve-
fitting.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
Johnson won because of the Daisy ad. No kidding.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_%28advertisement%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_%28advertisement%29)

Carter started getting favorable press when he started quoting Bob Dylan at
the University of Georgia School of Law on May 4, 1974. The best person who
was an outsider was going to win the Democratic nomination, and obviously, the
general election ( because post-Nixon).

[http://www.openculture.com/2012/07/hunter_s_thompson_remembe...](http://www.openculture.com/2012/07/hunter_s_thompson_remembers_jimmy_carters_captivating_bob_dylan_speech_1974.html)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The Daisy ad was based on an apparent willingness to use nukes in Vietnam. The
other effective ad they mention was based on a quote that said the US would be
better if it sawed off the entire Eastern seabord.

I'm not a historian of US politics, but it strikes me that Goldwater may have
just had a lot of terrible opinions and policies.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
The Daisy ad was a Rorshach blot. Peopel read into it what they wanted to. The
policies were certainly much more mainstream than they are now

------
m52go
> Theory: In US presidential elections, the more charismatic candidate wins.

I wonder if Trump is considered to have charisma.

Either way, it's worth mentioning that Trump's real trump card is his
masterful ability to reframe debates. Witness: his stances on women, risky
politics, and immigration.

Clinton is _reacting_ to each of these topics right now, and in very weak ways
(e.g., her woman's card tweet [0], also claiming she's better _because_ she's
a woman).

Trump will DOMINATE her if this trend continues.

I don't agree with everything Scott Adams says regarding Trump's campaign, as
much of it is way too far-fetched, but his commentary regarding Trump's
reframing is spot-on.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/726220886454468609](https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/726220886454468609)

~~~
kelukelugames
We might not like Trump, but he is charismatic. I don't know if he's on the
same level as Bill Clinton[1] or Obama, though "Make America great again" is
the same slogan as "hope and change." They are both vague enough to inspire
anyone, kind of like horoscopes.

Scott Adams is not wrong, but I am surprised that people learn from reading
his blog because non of Trump's tactics are new. To give Adams credit, he is a
great blogger. Adams lures readers with "Let me share Trump's secrets with you
because only us smart people know what is happening." People love to feel
smart and be part of an exclusive group so they quote Adams' simple analysis
as amazing insight. Also Adams fails to acknowledge that Trump overtly appeals
to misogyny, racism, and xenophobia. Trump wouldn't be this popular without
scapegoats.

On a personal level, I feel depressed that a candidate will get more votes,
not fewer, after making blatantly sexist comments.

[1] Clinton during his candidacy:
[https://youtu.be/ckHfgqK_hcU?t=10m30s](https://youtu.be/ckHfgqK_hcU?t=10m30s)
Notice the difference between Bill and Hilary near the end.

~~~
the_cat_kittles
not sure why your getting lots of downvotes, i think your take on adams is
pretty good. i was reading scott adams for a while as im sure lots of people
were when trump was rising. i kept reading for a while and kept on seeing
things that were just really stupid to me. he seems to think because he is a
"master persuader" that he knows more about _everything_ than everyone else,
but in one post he ventured in the realm of statistics and made some
_incredibly ignorant_ arguments. then i saw old posts where he had just as
confidently predicted herman cain. so part of what he is doing is just playing
a long game, calling unlikely things so that when one of them eventually
happens, he looks smart. i dont deny he has interesting insights, but he is
wayyyyyy to high on himself and his special little lens. when he posted on
twitter that he could convince anyone to vote for trump in 1 hour, i had to
unfollow.

i think manipulators are seen as smart by some people because they can be
effective, but i have two points that seem to be forgotten: most of the time
you eventually catch on to manipulators, and so they stop being effective,
and, _more importantly_ they are just assholes. so, i say that it doesnt take
intelligence to manipulate and bully and lie, it just takes gall. or
heartlessness. as an analogy, i bet some of the lawyers who came up with the
idea for ambulance chasing, or bankers who repackaged shitty subprime loans
probably that they were really smart, when maybe it was just that there arent
that many people willing to go that low.

~~~
kelukelugames
Yes, Adams has a history of predicting long shots because he takes the shotgun
approach. People only remember the winners.

Adams is like Trump. His megalomania helps with his existing fanbase. I think
your second paragraph applies to both of them.

~~~
the_cat_kittles
totally agree

------
jljljl
Perfect. And since charisma is in the eye of the beholder, or defined by
popular opinion, this can never be wrong. E.g., see how no one in these
comments can agree on which candidate is more charismatic.

Addendum: In elections, the most popular candidate wins.

~~~
jackweirdy
PG has already addressed that:
[http://paulgraham.com/recharisma.html](http://paulgraham.com/recharisma.html)

~~~
jimbokun
"Kennedy was the same way. He couldn't bear to be alone."

But Reagan and Obama are both famously introverted, while still considered
very charismatic.

------
cromwellian
The model is too simplistic. Human beings are also tribal and creatures of
habit as well. We tend to vote for our party, those we've voted for in the
past, and/or people who are like us.

In fact, the fact that only 11-12 states are up for grabs and the rest are
solidly Democratic or Republican shows that charisma doesn't matter for most
of the electoral.

It may be a weighted factor in those cross section of voters who are
independents and willing to cross political lines.

Is Trump really charismatic, or is he saying things the electorate wants to
hear, by promising everything under the sun, with no plan and no explanation,
and blaming problems on foreigners and minorities. Xenophobia can also be a
powerful factor.

IMHO, Hillary is going to beat Trump in the general election, however if
there's a major terrorist attack on US soil, we could be looking at President
Trump.

~~~
joslin01
> Human beings are also tribal

And who's usually the most powerful in a tribe? The most charismatic.

Many voters will change positions, so if you're looking to apply tribal theory
upon voter preference, that just takes into account the people who already had
their minds mostly made up.

The swing votes is the deciding factor, and what are some attributes of swing
voters? If they aren't die-hard republicans/democrats, they might be
ambivalent or outright disinterested in politics. Who do you think would sway
them? The fact-listing robot or the guy who says he's gonna change the world?

Was Bernie just saying what people want as well? Yes and no. Do you think a
robot would win that listed off everything that the electorate "wants to
hear"? Maybe. It depends on how much you trust the robot to get the job done,
doesn't it? Well, the human is also trying to evaluate this potential leader
and besides already being charmed by the charisma, the human also views
charisma as an attribute of the strong and capable.

------
Eliezer
It's not hard to imagine a future writer looking back and saying, "Of course
Trump lost the election, he was no Kennedy or Obama and widely hated - a clear
example of the rule!"

~~~
callmeed
It's not any harder to imagine the opposite IMO. I'd argue Trump is
charismatic to many and Hilary really isn't.

[https://www.quora.com/Is-Donald-Trump-charismatic](https://www.quora.com/Is-
Donald-Trump-charismatic)

------
ronilan
"Occam's razor says we should prefer the simpler of two explanations."

 _Theory: In US presidential elections, the candidate who wins Ohio wins the
elections._

"Oddly enough, the most recent true counterexample is probably 1960."

[http://i1.wp.com/metrocosm.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/09/pr...](http://i1.wp.com/metrocosm.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/09/presidential-election-results-1952-2012.png)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/us/22iht-
letter22.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/us/22iht-
letter22.html?_r=0)

~~~
DenisM
I believe you were looking for this?
[https://xkcd.com/1122/](https://xkcd.com/1122/)

~~~
yongjik
The alt text is golden: "No white guy who's been mentioned on Twitter has gone
on to win."

...and the streak may continue all the way to 2016!

------
TheOtherHobbes
Would be more impressive with a definition of charisma.

So I'll offer one - "charisma" makes voters (who are individually irrelevant)
feel like important players the candidate really cares about.

It's simple demagoguery and flattery.

Conversely, when voters feel their craven prejudices are being ignored for
rational policy reasons, they feel excluded and marginalised.

The conclusion is that most voters are like children who can be bought by a
reassuring pat on the head to make them feel like mommy and daddy love them,
and a promise of sweets after.

This is literally why we can't have nice things. Democracy needs adult
policies debated rationally by adults.

If most voters can't make decisions in an adult way, they're easy prey for the
grinning sharks who end up running things.

~~~
ribs
I profoundly agree and note that voting (at least in any reasonably-sized
electorate) is an inherently irrational act, and so the barrier to good
judgment is high.

It's inherently irrational because one's vote will almost certainly never
decide an election. Everyone intuits this fact. Even though they may consider
themselves to be performing a civic duty, they will always be subject to s
host of other reasons for voting as they do, reasons other than pure
consequentialist thinking.

------
Hondor
Maybe it's the sequence he presented it, but something sound incredibly wrong
about this line of thinking:

1) Here's my simple theory (the more charismatic wins).

2) Here's all this data to support it.

3) Here's some data that seems to contradict it (Nixon vs Humphry) so now I'll
tack on an exception so that it actually agrees with my now more complex
theory (the more charismatic wins unless the other one limits their media
appearances).

If you stop and exclude case where a "carefully scripted campaign spot" means
the less charismatic can win, then not only do you have to investigate every
other election to see if the less charismatic candidate also carefully
scripted their campaign spots, but you've also data dredged to find that
specific type of exception in the first place.

Sure, now your theory fits all the historical data, but if you try to use it
next election and it fails, you can tack on yet another exception and still
claim that it's right. "Oh, this one didn't count because of [new reason I
though of after the fact]."

~~~
basicplus2
it seems to work for climate "science"..

~~~
Hondor
It's hard for the layman to see any science happening with climate science.
All we hear is predictions that have already come true before they were made,
vague unfalsifiable predictions for the near future and the more concrete
predictions for so far in the future that we haven't had a chance to test them
yet. Maybe we can trust that climate scientists somehow blinded themselves to
recent data while making their models, then wrote up or even published their
predictions before unblinding themselves and saying "Wow, it turned out to be
right!". But we don't hear much about those important methodological details
in the popular press. We don't hear about the track record of correct vs
incorrect predictions. Each side of the debate only skews it to serve its own
interests.

For example, I recently read a story on a pro climate change website listing
many failures of previous climate predictions. However every single failure
was one where it turned out the effect was greater than predicted, never
smaller. Thus serving the goal of scaring people. That's probably not really a
fair showing of all predictions.

------
ryandamm
Keep in mind that most prognostication re: the Trump campaign has failed.
That's the trouble with inductive models; there's always the potential for
some event that could happen that hasn't happened yet, and it breaks your
model.

It's possible Trump falls into that category; 'charismatic' by some ill-
defined measure, but unelectable (in the general election).

------
awinter-py
Etymology of 'charisma' is fascinating. This wasn't a concept western society
had before weber liberated it from religious usage in the late 1800s; after
that it entered historiography as an explanation (or perhaps just a
description) of leadership ability that can't be explained in objective terms.

Not sure words like this aid our understanding of situations.

------
davemel37
> As for the theory being obvious, as far as I know, no one has proposed it
> before. Election forecasters are proud when they can achieve the same
> results with much more complicated models.

People have been saying for ages that the politician that wins is the one who
you can envision yourself having a beer with. Sounds to me like the exact
theory he presents.

------
ktRolster
In my estimation, Sanders is much more charismatic than Clinton.

------
hyperliner
Charisma is defined as "compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire
devotion in others."

It seems, just based on that and ignoring electoral map complexities, that PG
predicts that Trump will be the next President.

~~~
Retra
Most people I've met find Trump repulsive, not charming. Interesting, yes. As
a political entity.

I mean, people tend to like the smell of their own flatulence too, but that
doesn't mean they're going to wear it as perfume.

~~~
hyperliner
>>> "people tend to like the smell of their own flatulence too"

speak for yourself

------
padobson
I think I'd add another layer to this: Charisma wins undecided voters, and
undecided voters win elections.

~60% of the country (~30% GOP, ~30% Dem) vote along party lines. It's the ~30%
in the middle that decide elections, and I'd say they go with the more
charismatic candidate.

I think we'll get a good test in this election. I'd say Hillary is above
average when compared to Presidential candidates, but Donald Trump has
basically built his campaign on his personality. It's going to be a landmark
issues vs. personality election.

------
mc32
If we apply the Charisma Man[1] concept, it says that the most charismatic
would be an outsider of whom the insiders know little and thus his/her faults
don't translate into their context as shortcomings. In this case Trump's
brashness and unfiltered style is an asset rather than a drawback compared to
how those characteristics would wear on an insider candidate.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma_Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma_Man)

------
tim333
Charisma is no doubt a factor and you could probably explain Trump making it
to Republican Candidate that way but I don't think he'll beat Hillary in spite
of being more charismatic.

Occam's razor says favour the simplest explanation and I think here that would
be voters weigh a few factors including charisma and policy.

As an aside I bet on Trump at 11:1 based Scott Adams hypothesis but plan to
cover at 2:1 (on Betfair).

------
HillaryBriss
I just don't think he'll win.

So, as for charisma winning presidential elections, could it be that Trump is
the exception that proves the rule?

I mean, when did Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Obama or even Dubya overtly and
explicitly offend large fractions of the electorate with a seemingly unending
barrage of careless and rude statements?

Trump may have charisma, but it's coupled with an extreme talent for pissing
people off.

------
gregpilling
Max Weber is the father of sociology and famous for his Charismatic Authority
model.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic_authority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic_authority)

------
return0
Is Trump considered charismatic? Doesnt seem to fit the definition.

~~~
coderdude
I don't consider him charismatic but I am excited to see him win the election.
The reason his character appeals to me becomes clear when he is being
interviewed in the media. They seem so fake, polished and conditioned. He does
not. Juxtaposed to members of the media, to me, he seems like myself.

I've always had the impression that the people I see in the media are
completely fake and do not represent actual human beings. Other presidential
candidates are just like those people to me. They won't say anything that will
upset you. They go with whatever the current flow is. Whatever narrative the
nation is supposed to follow at the moment. It's the same way I feel when
reading comments on the net, including on HN. The character Trump represents
appeals to me because he seems to see through the kind of bullshit that I feel
like I'm seeing through as well.

~~~
HillaryBriss
I more or less agree with your characterization of the members of the media.

But when I listen to Trump being interviewed, he reminds me of a stereotypical
New York organized crime figure talking to a police detective, or, even worse,
the lawyer representing such a crime figure.

Trump tries to say things which are technically true but uninformative and
non-committal, things which are mere expressions of opinion instead of fact,
things which are just his best recollection or his "impressions" of people and
situations. He seems evasive so often.

And, of course, he's so willing to offend and treat his perceived enemies
rudely and ferociously that even a lot of Republicans dislike him.

How would this guy possibly collaborate and build a coalition to get anything
done? How would he ever win his fellow Republicans, much less Democrats (who
are all convinced he's a vile racist/sexist asshole they cannot touch with a
ten-foot pole) over to his side on anything?

I guess the answer is charisma?

~~~
coderdude
You present a compelling argument. It may just be that charisma is alive and
well in Trump. I can't answer those questions. I grapple with them, myself.

------
simonebrunozzi
Using Occam's razor: the candidate with the biggest budget wins.

Now try to disprove that.

------
zby
Hmm - so what he says is that the charisma of US presidents can only grow?

------
jimbokun
How does the fact Al Gore won the popular vote affect this analysis?

~~~
ferentchak
From the Article

"[2] True, Gore won the popular vote. But politicians know the electoral vote
decides the election, so that's what they campaign for. If Bush had been
campaigning for the popular vote he would presumably have got more of it.
(Thanks to judgmentalist for this point.)"

------
coderdude
I vouched for this because, barring any other knowledge of your account(s)
prior to the comments made on this account, I have not seen anything that, to
me, merits the suppression.

~~~
dang
That's a fine use of vouching, but we detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633621](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633621)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
coderdude
Ah good. I was wondering if I handled that right. I wasn't prepared to add a
comment after vouching so that caught me off guard. Took it as my time to
explain why.

To be clear, in the future I don't explain the vouching. Which I understand.

