All of this effort, just to say the same things about the candidates that many of us have said over and over again. Here are the headlines:
- Voters sense both peril and promise in party brands...
- Emotions about Hillary Clinton are mixed...
- Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are on opposite sides of the gender divide...
- The gender gap may be closing...
- Mitt Romney shows potential...
- In Rudy Giuliani versus Fred Thompson, the latter evokes more empathy...
- John Edwards has promise — and a problem...
- Barack Obama and John McCain have work to do...
Link to the NY Times Report
First of all, I'd love to see the "images" that they showed.
Secondly, here are my thoughts on the findings, most of them repeated from months and years ago:
- People have long-held views of Hillary Clinton, and many of them are ill-informed. Some people won't vote for her no matter what, but her team does a good job of packaging. From the highlights in her hair, to the choice of makeup and wardrobe, to the practice that she got as First Lady where she learned how to "look Presidential" with the smile and the wave and the "aura" of it all, her team plays retail politics well. I can't stand the idea of her being the Democratic nominee or the prospects of another Bush or Clinton leading anything, but I still have "3-second" moments where their packaging gets to me. And I'm actually paying attention to everything, I know more about her than most people, so I can understand why they feel torn. The packaging works.
Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are on opposite sides of the gender divide. We found indications that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Giuliani represent two sides of the same coin: Men show little interest in Mrs. Clinton initially but after watching her video they react positively. Women respond to her strongly at first, but their interest wanes after they watch her video.
With Mr. Giuliani, the reactions are reversed. Men respond strongly to his initial still photos, but this fades after they see his video. Women grow more engaged after watching his video.
This is evidence that swing voters’ responses change when they see these two candidates in action. For men, Mrs. Clinton is a pleasant surprise. For women, Mr. Giuliani has unexpected appeal.
- Packaging works. If Clinton looked like Diane Feinstein, men wouldn't respond as well. Giuliani looks sure of himself, which I guess some women like. It's interesting that women liked Clinton less and men liked Giuliani less, after seeing more of each.
- If males swing towards the Democrats, Republicans have no hope.
- Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee, like I said back in 2005. The reason he does so well in IA and NH, and has reached double figures in SC, is because he "looks like a President." I'm focusing on packaging, retail politics, gut reactions to candidates, because that's all most voters are going off of, including the ones in Iowa and NH. What percentage of those people do you think actually go to all of the websites and read through the plans, instead of making sure that they go to events to try and "get a feel for" a candidate? Very few. Part of the reason he's getting trounced as badly is because he is not so well-known, as much as it is because he's a mormon.
- I'm surprised that the study found that people liked Fred Thompson more after seeing more of him. Again, I'd like to see the photos they used. If they have used more recent photos and videos where he has lost so much weight and his skin is hanging off of his face, I doubt they will still feel that why. They probably show pictures of him from years ago, when he weighed more and looked like the Law & Order character. He doesn't any more.
- John Edwards' problem is he doesn't look confident in his own skin at times. That makes people feel "caution" towards him. They like him, and they'd like to support him, like I have said a thousand times on his blog, but he can look like he's hiding something, or holding something back, because he's so careful in everything, from his next step to looking like he needs to decide whether or not he should wave. His body movements are not fluid, and it makes people feel like they just can't trust him fully, which is funny, since he's making it about trust. He doesn't have the "coaching" that Clinton does, and doesn't want it, but he could use it. I know that Edwards is trustworthy, but his body language can work against him from time to time with people who haven't followed him since 2002 like I have, especially all of the blinking. The section on him confirmed everything that I have been saying about him since 2005, some of the very reasons I got banned from his site several times, I guess. The good news for John Edwards is a lot of the negative feelings towards him are based on BS, made up fake scandals and smears. If he can get over his "ticks," he'll be fine, like stumbling over his words every time that he knows that he's about to say a good line. Go back and look at the JJ speech. Every time that he knows a good line is coming up, he stumbles over his words. That's a tick. The blinking is a tick. He didn't have either in 2004.
- John McCain is too old. Fifteen percent said they would never vote for someone over 70 years old. Starting there, he's toast. Obama came across as just "blah," like many people have been saying here for months, about how disappointing Obama has been. He didn't live up to the media hype.
This is an interesting comment from another site about Hillary Clinton:
profe51
posted on November 11, 2007 09:33:19 PM new
I don't know much about the science behind this study, but it's very interesting none the less. It seems right on about Hillary and might offer some explanation as to why her numbers remain so high in the polls when in reality you can't hardly seem to find a single soul who will admit to liking her.
Maybe her triangulation serves its purpose.
I'm still looking for the actual study.