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What Charisma Is

paulgraham.com · 457 words · saved by 1 readers

November 2004 Several people who read It's Charisma, Stupid have asked what I mean by charisma. After all, if I'm only saying that people vote for the candidate they like, I'm not saying much. So I want to emphasize that I'm talking about something that could be predicted well in advance of the election-- indeed, something that can generally be predicted from political cartoons. Before an election there is usually little disagreement about which candidate is more charismatic. (This may change if charisma starts to be perceived as the key to winning.) In this past election, even Kerry's supporters worried about his "patrician reserve." Or think of Gore, who was so wooden that it seemed to him the best plan to make a joke of it. If political cartoons portray your candidate as stupid or unprincipled, you have nothing to worry about. But once they portray him as boring, you're in trouble. While it's generally easy to say which candidate has more charisma, it's a little harder

What Charisma Is --> November 2004 Several people who read It's Charisma, Stupid have asked what I mean by charisma. After all, if I'm only saying that people vote for the candidate they like, I'm not saying much. So I want to emphasize that I'm talking about something that could be predicted well in advance of the election-- indeed, something that can generally be predicted from political cartoons. Before an election there is usually little disagreement about which candidate is more charismatic. (This may change if charisma starts to be perceived as the key to winning.) In this past election,

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