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It probably doesn't get more comical than to learn that a group of former Hillary Clinton operatives have gotten together in a quest to make Kamala Harris more...likeable.According to Axios:Details: The host was Kiki McLean, a Democratic public affairs expert and former adviser to both Clintons.Her guests included Harris confidant Minyon Moore; two former DNC officials, Donna Brazile and Leah Daughtry; Biden adviser and leader of his outside group, Stephanie Cutter; former Hillary Clinton spokeswomen and Democratic strategists Adrienne Elrod and Karen Finney; and former Obama White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri.Nobody from the vice president's office was at the...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) struggles to appeal personally to voters despite her popular policies, Axios reporter Alexi McCammond said on MSNBC Monday. McCammond discussed her article arguing that voters find Warren's left-wing policies appealing but have "qualms" about the Massachusetts senator's personality. Voters "liked things like canceling student loan debt, they liked the idea of taxing corporations and the wealthy because they feel like it will help people like them personally, but they didn't like Elizabeth Warren's personality," McCammond said.

Complete Headline: Bill Clinton reminds voters that Republicans 'slobbered all over' Hillary with love before she ran for president and now have cast her as the 'Wicked Witch of the West' Bill Clinton explained in colorful language why his wife might have a likability problem with voters He told an audience of supporters in California today that if mud was thrown at them constantly their polling numbers would go down too 'Even if none of it's true,' the former president said, reminding the audience that the Republicans used to love Hillary Bill Clinton tried to explain why his wife is...

Hillary Clinton's declining personal image, ongoing battle to break free of the challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders and struggle to adapt to an anti-establishment mood among voters this year have become caution signs for her campaign and the focus of new efforts to fortify her position as she prepares for a bruising general election. More than a dozen Clinton ­allies identified weaknesses in her candidacy that may erode her prospects of defeating Donald Trump, including poor showings with young women, untrustworthiness, unlikability and a lackluster style on the stump. Supporters also worry that she is a conventional candidate in an...

Well then, you must like losing your job to someone in Mexico who will make $3/hour. Union leaders at an air conditioner factory in Indianapolis threatened with losing 1,400 jobs to Mexico said on Tuesday the plants owner expects to pay Mexican workers $3 an hour compared to an average of more than $20 an hour for the U.S. workers. "We have not given up the fight yet," said Chuck Jones, president of the United Steelworkers union local that represents workers at the Carrier Corp plant. "But Carrier has pretty well indicated that the wage differential is too great and...

Contrary to the impression that he has so assiduously worked to cultivate, Barack Obama is not a king of either the divine-right or impotent-figurehead variety, but instead the president of a republic. Having grown up in a country that still boasts the last vestiges of a once-potent monarchy, I am reasonably familiar with the role that incumbent sovereigns play in the world’s most popular constitutional arrangement, and aware too of what it takes for a modern potentate to be regarded as a success. In modern Britain, the Queen’s likeability and personality help her no end, whereas her political talent and...

Despite declining approval numbers, pundits are opining that Obama will be re-elected because of his personal likeability rating. Lacking a background in market research, they are taking at face value a question with much more subtle implications. In legitimate polling, three major factors include the sample, the questions, and the methodology (manner in which the poll is administered). To provide valid results, the sample must be truly representative of the target audience. For example, a purported "national sample" that skews heavily toward Democratic or Republican voters does not meet this criterion. Also, a sample drawn from the general population for...

Watching the debate on Wednesday, I truly can't imagine Barack Obama having come off as the more likeable candidate. Continuously glancing downwards, perhaps looking for inspiration (I glance upwards, myself), and often displaying an angry countenance, he seemed stiff, detached, and petulant. In contrast, Mitt Romney appeared energetic, nimble-minded, affable, engaged, and engaging. It was the Mind vs. the Unkind. ...Well, what we like is determined by emotion or taste, which generally has little acquaintance with reason. A person may like tobacco more than vegetables or chocolate more than exercise, but few would call them wiser choices. In the same...

This news was embargoed until 6:30 pm Eastern time on 09/04/12 Obama’s Popularity Dips Underwater; For Romney, a Faint Favorability Bounce Barack Obama approaches his nomination for a second term with the lowest pre-convention personal popularity of an incumbent president in ABC News/Washington Post polls since the 1980s. He’s also at his lowest of the year among registered voters, with trouble among women.

Ever since he burst on the national scene, up from obscurity as an Illinois State Senator addicted to voting present, his purported "likeability" has been cited as one of Barack Obama's principal political assets. Polling has historically shown that even as the public may disapprove his policies, they tell pollsters that they like him personally. To be honest, he has always left me cold, because I recognize in him the sort of figure I encountered many times in my academic career: someone who masks his lack of substance with a big smile, jokes (sometimes mean jokes at the expense of...

A more confident and energized Mitt Romney is putting his people skills to the test in New Hampshire as he tries to fix a likeability issue that hurt his failed bid for the White House in 2008. The Republican presidential hopeful is shaking hands, signing autographs and pumping diesel in a dozen appearances over three days in a classic campaign bus tour aimed at winning the Republican nomination backed by television ads. In an interview with Reuters, the former Massachusetts governor said he has embraced retail politics with a different mindset than in 2008 when he lost the nomination to...

Obama's the Perfect Candidate for the Sally Field Party by Seth Swirsky Actress Sally Field won an Oscar in 1979 for playing a union organizer in “Norma Rae.” Six years later, she won the same prized-award for her role in “Places in the Heart,” her acceptance speech earning its own special place in sound-bite history: “…I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" That about sums up what the Democratic party...

I want Fred Thompson to win the Republican nomination. (Did you hear he's surging in South Carolina?) And it's not just that the other candidates stink for various and sundry reasons--which I'll run through momentarily--or that he's the best of the worst or something. I want Fred for his own reasons. Let's run through the problems with the other guys: John McCain: He marches to his own little drummer who doesn't know the conservative rhythm. Of course there's McCain-Feingold that nifty little piece of legislation who's chief beneficiary was George Soros, but there's this other little thing: his only consistent...

Veterans of the 90’s VRWC thank Hillary Rodham Clinton for speaking to voters in Iowa from a cattle barn. After all, elections are all about the futures. Hillary was in rare form, offering us the following words of wisdom. "I've been to cattle barns before and sales before, in Arkansas, but I've never felt like I was the one that was being bid on," Clinton told a crowd in western Iowa. "I know you're going to inspect me. You can look inside my mouth if you want. I hope by the end of my time with you I can make...

The dead have been used, the admired exploited, and the gay outed. The 2004 election is certainly not the dirtiest campaign in American history - no sexual sleaze or corruption charges, so far - but this week has seen its share of the distasteful. Less than a day after the actor who personified Superman died, John Edwards was on the stump in Iowa: "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair...

Forget about who should be president for a second. Who would you rather date: George Bush or John Kerry? According to a survey of 5,000 single men and women by the dating service It's Just Lunch, Bush wins this race. Of about 2,500 women polled, 49 percent said they'd rather date the president, while about one-third of singles said they would prefer Democratic challenger John Kerry. And 15 percent would go out with candidate Ralph Nader. Bush also wins as most charming, with 54 percent of survey participants voting for him. Forty percent found Kerry most charming; Nader got 6...

I believe I've figured out Kerry's strategy, especially in the debates. Actually, it's Schrum's stategy...he tried it with Al Gore, but Gore couldn't carry it off. With Kerry, I think it's working. Kerry is a better actor. THEIR STRATEGY: Take the "likeability" card out of contention. Create an atmosphere where Bush has to choose between hitting back hard or appearing weak if he doesn't respond to harsh lies about him and Cheney. Kerry trails in the "likeability" category, so take away the president's trump card: his connection with ordinary Americans. THEIR TACTICS: Show disdain and disrespect. Take away any atmosphere...

NOTRE DAME, IND. - When television became the principal tool for political communication, seekers of the presidency confronted a new challenge: They had to present themselves not only as plausible leaders of a world superpower, but also as visitors Americans would welcome in their homes. Television made White House aspirants guests - invited or not - in our households, and they began dropping by at all hours. Between news reports, interview programs, talk shows, chats with late-night comics, and commercials, candidates are now unavoidable as they occupy our screens and seek our support. Back in 1969, writer Michael J. Arlen...

The doomed defeatist John Kerry is a loser and a bore, says Mark Steyn, and the only thing he is consistent about is his opposition to the projection of US power in America’s interests New Hampshire I see even the editor of The Spectator, after his deplorable flirtation with ‘Tories For Kerry’, has decided to stick with Bush. So would most of those Tories for Kerry if they had to spend ten minutes in the senator’s company. As I wrote last December, ‘the only real question next November is how badly the Dems will do’. But even I didn’t expect...

Advisers to George W Bush have told him to take a leaf from the Ronald Reagan book and come across as more "likeable" than the notoriously dry and haughty John Kerry in the televised debates that may decide the outcome of the election.President Bush's talent for folksy self-deprecation, particularly about his own public-speaking abilities, has been recognised by senior Kerry aides as a big threat during the debates, which begin on Thursday. "Bush is the least understood debater of the last generation," said Joe Lochart, a former Clinton aide who is advising the flagging Kerry campaign. "But he has never...