February 10, 2004

MAKE THAT SENATOR RYAN:

Beauty is more than ballot deep (Stacy St. Clair, February 09, 2004, Daily Herald)

On the campaign trail, U.S. Senate candidate Chirinjeev Kathuria groans whenever he ends up next to opponent Jack Ryan in a photo.

There's just no competing with Ryan's million-watt smile.

Or his chiseled good looks.

Or his toned body.

"The reaction to Jack is always very strong," Kathuria said. "The initial reaction to him is absolutely different from the reaction to me."

Kathuria, a Sikh who wears a traditional turban and beard, normally wouldn't care how he stacks up against the western definition of dreamy. But in a crowded Senate race, he knows it matters.

Conventional wisdom suggests that good-looking candidates fare better than their less-attractive opponents. It's more than a political handler's belief - it's a behavior pattern backed by years of research by a Northern Illinois University professor.

"Looks count," professor James Schubert said. "People are more likely to pay attention to attractive candidates."

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 10, 2004 2:05 PM
Comments

Illinois has trended Dem. And it doesn't help that Ryan has the same last name as the scandal-tarred recent GOP governor Ryan.
Most pundits are putting Illinois in the probable Dem pickup category. Let's hope they're wrong.

Posted by: AWW at February 10, 2004 2:39 PM

Looks count," professor James Schubert said. "People are more likely to pay attention to attractive candidates."

Unfortunately, Prof. Schubert is correct, and 'looks count' not just in politics but every facet of life from employment to dating to politics.

Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at February 10, 2004 4:16 PM

I am intrigued by Ryan but will need to learn a whole lot more before he gets my vote. If you know something of his story, it almost sounds too good to be true.

Posted by: Rick T. at February 10, 2004 5:34 PM

Rick:

You're not going to vote for him because he's too good a guy?

Posted by: oj at February 10, 2004 8:30 PM

From Jonathan Swift's Tale of a Tub (1710):

" . . . in most corporeal beings which have fallen under my cognisance, the outside hath been infinitely preferable to the in, whereof I have been further convinced from some late experiments. Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her person for the worse. Yesterday I ordered the carcass of a beau to be stripped in my presence, when we were all amazed to find so many unsuspected faults under one suit of clothes. Then I laid open his brain, his heart, and his spleen, but I plainly perceived at every operation that the farther we proceeded, we found the defects increase upon us, in number and bulk; from all which I justly formed this conclusion to myself, that whatever philosopher or projector can find out an art to sodder and patch up the flaws and imperfections of Nature, will deserve much better of mankind and teach us a more useful science than that so much in present esteem, of widening and exposing them (like him who held anatomy to be the ultimate end of physic). And he whose fortunes and dispositions have placed him in a convenient station to enjoy the fruits of this noble art, he that can with Epicurus content his ideas with the films and images that fly off upon his senses from the superfices of things, such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature, leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up. This is the sublime and refined point of felicity called the possession of being well-deceived, the serene peaceful state of being a fool among knaves."

What Swift meant as a joke, every campaign manager seems to believe in earnest.

Posted by: Josh Silverman at February 11, 2004 6:17 PM
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