[mass55th]

"As shallow as that sounds, I had that argued a few months ago by a friend of nearly half a century who is a staunch conservative and saw DeSantis as the best chance to beat Biden and the Left."

That's pretty sad, that someone who claims to be a Conservative would stoop that low to explain why someone should vote for a candidate. This isn't 1960, when plenty of people voted for John F. Kennedy because he was supposed to be good looking, despite his being a Catholic. I remember that his religion was one of the issues when he ran. People wondered if he'd allow his religion to interfere with his making decisions. I also think people voted for him because Jackie was part of the package. I never thought JFK was handsome. I was only 13 when he was elected.

[Rockingham]

My friend was not arguing the point as a substantively true proposition but as how so many voters think. He had in mind his sister in law in particular, a woman who apparently is given to superficial thinking and who is adamantly liberal.

[Baldwin77]

“I never thought JFK was handsome.”

-— Compared to Nixon, maybe ?