Steven
Hanley
About

email: sjh@svana.org

web: https://svana.org/sjh
twitter: https://twitter.com/sjhmtb
instagram: https://instagram.com/sjhmtb

Other online diaries:

Aaron Broughton,
Andrew Pollock,
Anthony Towns,
Chris Yeoh,
Martijn van Oosterhout,
Michael Davies,
Michael Still,
Tony Breeds,

Links:

Linux Weekly News,
XKCD,
Girl Genius,
Planet Linux Australia,
Bilbys,
CORC,

Canberra Weather: forecast, radar.

Subscribe: rss, rss2.0, atom

←November→

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

←2004→

Months
Jan	Feb	Mar
Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep
Oct	Nov	Dec

Categories:

• amusing - 37
• comp - 143
•   blogging - 6
•   blosxom - 12
•   design - 5
•   email - 7
•   hardware - 37
•   internet - 14
•   ip - 4
•   linux - 22
•   prog - 2
•   schwag - 2
•   software - 17
• lca - 56
• leisure - 120
•   books - 13
•   food - 51
•   holiday - 2
•   music - 25
•   screen - 21
•   theatre - 5
• mtb - 438
•   events - 113
•   gear - 94
• various - 318
•   ilmiwac - 38
•   milkcarton - 21
• work - 5

• June 2018 (1)
• December 2016 (1)
• August 2016 (1)
• July 2016 (1)
• June 2016 (4)
• May 2016 (1)
• November 2015 (21)
• September 2014 (2)
• May 2014 (1)
• July 2013 (1)
• May 2013 (2)
• December 2012 (5)
• December 2011 (31)
• November 2011 (1)
• October 2011 (5)
• June 2011 (4)
• May 2011 (5)
• April 2011 (4)
• March 2011 (3)
• February 2011 (4)
• January 2011 (8)
• December 2010 (3)
• November 2010 (11)
• October 2010 (4)
• September 2010 (3)
• August 2010 (4)
• July 2010 (5)
• June 2010 (5)
• May 2010 (4)
• April 2010 (6)
• March 2010 (4)
• February 2010 (2)
• January 2010 (9)
• December 2009 (4)
• November 2009 (7)
• October 2009 (4)
• September 2009 (7)
• August 2009 (12)
• July 2009 (8)
• June 2009 (8)
• May 2009 (14)
• April 2009 (6)
• March 2009 (8)
• February 2009 (7)
• January 2009 (13)
• December 2008 (9)
• November 2008 (12)
• October 2008 (7)
• September 2008 (10)
• August 2008 (7)
• July 2008 (11)
• June 2008 (14)
• May 2008 (30)
• April 2008 (20)
• March 2008 (12)
• February 2008 (8)
• January 2008 (7)
• December 2007 (7)
• November 2007 (11)
• October 2007 (9)
• September 2007 (7)
• August 2007 (7)
• July 2007 (23)
• June 2007 (6)
• May 2007 (17)
• April 2007 (7)
• March 2007 (9)
• February 2007 (7)
• January 2007 (26)
• December 2006 (7)
• November 2006 (10)
• October 2006 (11)
• September 2006 (12)
• August 2006 (16)
• July 2006 (9)
• June 2006 (12)
• May 2006 (23)
• April 2006 (17)
• March 2006 (16)
• February 2006 (13)
• January 2006 (23)
• December 2005 (13)
• November 2005 (20)
• October 2005 (14)
• September 2005 (27)
• August 2005 (34)
• July 2005 (28)
• June 2005 (30)
• May 2005 (12)
• April 2005 (17)
• March 2005 (28)
• February 2005 (38)
• January 2005 (29)
• December 2004 (33)
• November 2004 (38)
• October 2004 (15)
• September 2004 (25)

Fri, 12 Nov 2004

TV Nation and perceptions of charisma - 12:22
Paul Graham has two new essays up since the last one I commented on. The most recent of of these essays points out, since the introduction of widespread television around 1960, every presidential election in the US has been won by the candidate perceived to be the most charismatic, irrelevant of politics. As Paul noticed this can to some extent be attributed to the fact that taking policies and other such things into account the two parties are incredibly similar, so charisma may as well be used as a differentiator in the minds of the voters as anything else.

There may be something in this theory, perception of charisma by the voting public, encouraged by TV. Michael Moore suggested in his book Dude, Where's My Country? that Oprah would make a good presidential candidate. Some polls appear to support this notion strongly. Interestingly I also note two recent popular TV or Movie presidents, Jed Bartlett in The West Wing played by Martin Sheen and Andrew Shepherd in The American President played by Michael Douglas both fit the charismatic persona well and have proven popular with the US viewing public.

I wonder, does the Democratic party simply need to find their own presidential version of Robin Williams?

[/various] link