I really didn't like Scandal, but dammit if I was going to miss one furtive glance from
Fitz, or one wine-fueled monologue from Olivia you are WRONG.
I hate-watched the crap out of that.
Hey scandalized voters, Trace here for DNews coming at you from the 2016 Democratic National
Convention in Philadelphia!
So, if we hate-watch shows all the time, and hate-friend people on social media…
can you hate-vote?
Why do we vote for people we don't like?
Does likeability even matter?
Firstly, absolutely, being likable is important to presidential candidates.
So, politicians get pollsters out into the populace to see how likable they are.
According to Gallup polls,
in January of 2000, Bush was 3 percent more likable than Gore, in May of 2012, Obama was
29 percent more likable than Romney.
Today, Hillary Clinton is 10 percent more likable than Donald Trump but, they both sorta
suck… according to the numbers.
Pollsters can also measure likability by asking thousands of people if certain "characteristics
and qualities apply to Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump," things like: moral character
(Hillary is 3 above Trump there), honesty (Trump by 1) and even "Cares about the needs
of people like me" (Hill by 7).
Polling also measures a candidate's "favorability rating," -- or how they feel about the candidate
overall (Bernie wins that one by 13), and "job approval rating" -- how they're actually
performing once in office.
Aside from the metric of likability, Hillary and Trump both have historically low favorability
as candidates.
According to polling from the Roper Center and IBD/TIPP: Hillary is in the high 30s and
Trump is just above 50 in the metric: STRONGLY UNFAVORABLE.
You don't WANT to get a high score on that one.
One third of Americans rank Hillary as strongly unfavorable, and more than half do for Trump!
In fact, if it weren't for Trump, says FiveThirtyEight, Hillary's strong unfavorability would be the
lowest ever seen for a candidate.
Interestingly, this time around we have an election in the U.S. with few historical data
points, because one of the candidates is female.
A while back we did a video about female leaders showing they're perceived in many ways as
superior to males, but not so much in likability.
Mainly because likability doesn't really have a specific definition.
Even the dictionary's pithy, "pleasant, friendly, easy to like" is surprisingly broad.
The thing is, the American political system isn't an election of everyone in the United
States, we're (allegedly) a republic with a two-party system, thus we have a limited
selection.
It's not about who's the most likable person in politics, we're picking from those who
are available.
In this case, neither candidate is more liked than they are disliked, based on these polls.
But that probably doesn't really matter.
In 2014, Cass Sunstein published a paper about partyism showing identification with a political
party elicits more prejudice, in some, than even racism.
So, it would seem hate-voting is a thing, and likability, doesn't really matter that
much.
I mean, even President Obama only has a 49 percent job approval rating right now (similar
to Reagan's at this time in his presidency, and slightly less than Bill Clinton's).
This is slightly lower than the average of 53 percent when you take into account all
U.S. Presidents since 1938.
So, if you think about it, no U.S. President is ever likable all the time.
Truthfully, discussions about who you want to have a beer with (usually male candidates),
or who's too brash or shouty (usually female candidates), often become media fodder in
lieu of questions like "who can do the job," "who has experience" or "who would display
good judgement," and so on.
American leaders may be rarely likable, but they are often tough, fair, competent and
hardworking.
So, as one Republican said, it's up to us to vote our conscience.
If you want to learn how ladies can lead too, and they can, often better.
Check out the video we made on that here:
What do you think?
Do you think you have to "like" a candidate to vote for them?
Do you hate-vote?