CNN: You don't have to be liked to be president ... but it helps
June 13, 2007
By Bill Schneider
CNN Senior Political Analyst
According to a new CNN poll, Sen. HIllary Clinton leads -- even though Democrats find Sen. Barack Obama more likeable.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Does likeability matter for a presidential candidate?
It may not be the determining factor, but likeability does matter.
Hillary Clinton is now the frontrunner among New Hampshire Democrats. But when Democrats were asked which candidate they find most likeable, Clinton came in third, behind Barack Obama and John Edwards.
Is that a problem? Stephen Hess, a presidential historian at the Brookings Institution in Washington is not so sure.
"If you were listing the things a president had to be good at, like being commander-in-chief or being chief executive of a federal bureaucracy, you wouldn't put likeability up there as a necessary quality."...
Likeability has come to matter more because, in the age of television, Americans have a personal relationship with their president, probably more than any other elected official....
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Have Americans elected a president they didn't particularly like? "Try Richard M. Nixon," Hess said. "Twice."...
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When people choose a president, it's like hiring someone for a job. The first thing voters want to know is, can the candidate do the job? Once they're satisfied with the answer, they ask, "OK, but is this someone I like? After all, we're going to have to work together for the next four years.''
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/13/schneider.likability/index.html