Likability won't matter as much as you think

A few weeks ago I was chatting on the telephone with Mickey Carroll, the director of the Polling Institute at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. The institute had released a national poll that put a rather interesting twist on the presidential race, and it snagged my attention.\n"I'm always worried people will think we're being wiseguys or frivolous or kidding around," Caroll said in a thick New York accent. \n"I had a lady call me and say she thought it was the dumbest thing she had ever read," he said. "But what we try to do is get beyond the straight up-and-down and get a real, personal reaction to these guys. It's not irrelevant at all."\nI agreed and did not find the poll to be the dumbest thing I had ever read. It was, in fact, quite telling. Quinnipiac found that half of the registered voters surveyed said they would prefer to attend a backyard barbecue with President Bush. Thirty-nine percent said they'd have a cookout with John Kerry.\nThis isn't surprising. Personally, I would relish the opportunity to chat with either candidate in any forum. But overall, the president gives the impression that he'd slap you on the back, tell you a good joke and eat whatever you throw on the grill. Kerry gives the impression he'd hover behind you and explain to you exactly how he wants his hamburger cooked -- "not too raw, not too well-done, exquisitely medium" is my guess.\nCarroll says likability is a mystical quality that's hard to measure and hard to define.\n"It's obviously a factor for voters, but we don't know how much. Would voters choose a guy they think is going to be an awful president but is a great guy? Of course not," Carroll told me. "But being a great guy could help a politician."\nPollsters continually say voters see Kerry as cold, distant and aloof, although, much like the perception of Bush's intelligence during the 2000 election, I wonder if it's something voters actually believe or just think because they hear it over and over.\nEveryone says Kerry needs to loosen up. Right now, though, the worst thing Kerry could do is listen to all the people who keep telling him he needs to loosen up. It's an election curse. Whenever a politician is told they need to loosen up, they come off looking sillier and less real than if they were simply themselves. (For example: Which of the five Al Gores did you find the most real in 2000?)\nLikability certainly will be an issue in November, but I don't think it's going to be as important as others believe for five reasons.\nFirst: The incumbent's referendum factor. Elections against a sitting president tend to be a referendum on the incumbent. Likability matters more in open-seat races, like in 2000. The president is basically asking America to rehire him, and he has a record to defend. Even if voters like the man, they may not vote for him if they are upset about the economy, budget, the war or other personal issues. \nSecond: The real person factor. Voters would certainly rather like the person they're stuck with for four years, but they also want someone who isn't pretending to be someone else. That's what gave Bush the edge over Gore in 2000. Kerry is comfortable in his skin and doesn't make an issue out of being someone else.\nThird: The debate factor. Remember, most voters don't really start paying attention to the election until the political conventions and the presidential debates. Voters were lukewarm to Ronald Reagan in 1980 until he sealed up the election with a stellar performance against former President Jimmy Carter. Kerry may still show-up Bush in the debates this fall.\nFourth: The important issues factor. The more important the issues are in a particular year, the more people are likely to ignore the superficial things. Big issues, like jobs and terrorism and national security, may make likability less of a factor.\nAnd lastly: The Kerry win-record factor. He has won all the races he was supposed to lose. He vanquished the affable William Weld, a former governor of Massachusetts, in a tight 1996 Senate race. He vanquished the passionate Gov. Howard Dean and personable Sen. John Edwards in the primaries.\nNow Kerry has his eyes set on the likable President Bush. And a good measure of how worried the Bush campaign is will be how much they keep perpetuating the fact that Kerry is unlikable.