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I saw movies of JFK and Jackie at their wedding on Larry King last night - the charm, the twinkle in the eye just oozed from him. Despite a fairly unsuccesful Presidency he still polls as one of the best all time Presidents. Men wanted to be him, women wanted to have him. Johnson, Carter, Nixon all seemed boring, strident, whatever. Then Reagan came, more charm and twinkle, despite his age and still adored by Republicans. GHB, earnest, accomplished, but predictible. It is imposssible to overstate how much I despise Clinton but to a large part of the population he seemed very charming and many still revere him. The idea I have is that personal charm trumps ability. And Arnold was more charming than Tom and therefore likely to be next governor.

I think you're right. As much as "we" here might value content, I think you're comments are dead-on correct, and does play a big part in any election campaign, and gives a boost to Arnold. Thank goodness that Arnold is conservative on economic and fiscal issues, because it looks like he's going to win this.

Even a broke clock is right twice a day.

In my opinion, in the last 50 years there has been two presidents that the American people had a personal attachment for, over their entire presidency. They were Eisenhower and Reagan. Through the years and with the help from the media, JFK has almost become a martyr of sorts. Clinton's presidency was based on lies and his ability to fool the people all the time.