“what elections come down to is who the uninformed voters like better.”
Actually, I’ll go you 1 better: they vote for whose name they recall better.
This is why stupid things like name-signs on lawns and bumper stickers work.
Well, that is not so much for Presidential elections. I would like to think a voter in a Presidential election can at least put a name to a face and has actually heard some sound bites from that candidate. On local elections, there is no way the vast majority of voters could pick the candidate out of a police lineup let alone tell you what they stand for. In that case, name recognition is king.