I touched on this in another thread. We like to think that it's all about issues and where people want to take the country, etc., but that's only true among the political junkies like who post here and at the lib counterparts.
I maintain that in presidential elections, way more often than not people vote for the candidate they like better.
In the last 50 years or so, the only time I can remember that the candidate who was less personally likeable won was Nixon over Humphrey in 1968. I'm not talking about their philosophies or stances on the issues or anything, I'm talking about pure, personal likeability.
People liked Ike better than Stevenson in '52 and '56, JFK better than Nixon in '60, LBJ better than Goldwater in '64, Nixon better than McGovern in '72, Carter better than Ford in '76, Reagan better than Carter in '80 and Mondale in '84 and G.W. Bush better than Gore in 2000.
They also ... and it's denying reality to claim otherwise ... liked Bill Clinton and Ross Perot better than G.H.W. Bush in '92 and Clinton better than Dole in '96. But you go back to '88, and they liked G.H.W. Bush better than Dukakis, who to this day still comes across with all the warmth of a robot.
And as a rule, I don't like feel-goodism ... but did that not have a whole lot to do with Reagan's '84 landslide. I mean, can you sit there with a straight face and tell me that everybody in all those Dem strongholds who went for Reagan in '84 were in total agreement with him philosophically and supported the direction he wanted to take the country? Highly doubtful. But he made the people feel good and they gravitated toward him.
I think G.W. Bush could very well have that same ability, although he'll never be the master Reagan was.
But to say it doesn't exist is to deny human nature. And our challenge is to explain ourselves and sell our program and sell why it is the best direction for this country, and make people feel good about supporting it. We don't need to sit there in judgment of people and act like a bunch of Mr. Spocks and deny human nature and try to expect people to operate strictly with their heads and with logic 365/24/7; we need to turn that basic human nature to feel good around and use it ourselves.