Dubya had serious rizz. Stupid rizz, but that was like his whole thing. There was a whole discourse around “he’s the sort of guy you’d want to grab a beer with”. People found Bush much more charismatic than Kerry on the whole.
Also, say what you want about trump, but charisma is like the one thing he has. It’s super grating to me, but a lot of people find his whole schtick very magnetic.
I say this as someone who fucking loathed George W. Bush: John Kerry had even less charisma. I couldn’t fucking believe that somehow primary voters decided they wanted John Kerry when John Edwards, Howard Dean, and Wesley Clark were potential alternatives. John Kerry had less charisma than a pile of mildewy laundry.
Pretty sure I heard Bush, before running, presented as well spoken and intelligent. Somewhere along the way he was told that would be off-putting to many voters and to dial it back a bit.
Yeah there were old vids of him doing debates, IIRC and he was rather sharp and they were contrasted with the way he came off during his two terms, and he seemed…less sharp, let’s say.
Dubya had serious rizz. Stupid rizz, but that was like his whole thing. There was a whole discourse around “he’s the sort of guy you’d want to grab a beer with”. People found Bush much more charismatic than Kerry on the whole.
Also, say what you want about trump, but charisma is like the one thing he has. It’s super grating to me, but a lot of people find his whole schtick very magnetic.
I say this as someone who fucking loathed George W. Bush: John Kerry had even less charisma. I couldn’t fucking believe that somehow primary voters decided they wanted John Kerry when John Edwards, Howard Dean, and Wesley Clark were potential alternatives. John Kerry had less charisma than a pile of mildewy laundry.
Pretty sure I heard Bush, before running, presented as well spoken and intelligent. Somewhere along the way he was told that would be off-putting to many voters and to dial it back a bit.
Yeah there were old vids of him doing debates, IIRC and he was rather sharp and they were contrasted with the way he came off during his two terms, and he seemed…less sharp, let’s say.
Maybe it’s because he stopped partying.