Obama and McCain Match The West Wing’s Style of Leadership
February 5, 2008 by Eric Eggertson
Filed under Marketing
There are two ways to find a leader, according to the West Wing’s Aaron Sorkin.
You can find someone who has good ideas, a good heart and strong communications skills.
Or, you can find whoever who is the most electable, and you try to turn them into a good leader.
Most years, the electable candidate has had the edge. This year, communication skills and character have the edge.
If Barack Obama ends up facing John McCain in the presidential race, you might as well plug Season 7 of The West Wing into your DVD player. A maverick Republican who speaks his mind and doesn’t kow-tow to religious fundamentalists versus a person of color speaking from the heart and looking for a new way to run the country.
If Aaron Sorkin was writing this script, he couldn’t have made it more dramatic.
Barack Obama is much more attractive than Jimmy Smits and doesn’t have the faux accent.
But I totally agree.
Eric,
In regard to you opening line above, historically there has been a third way to find a leader or at least a third dimension that correlates with the success of elected officials at the U.S. President level and that is physical attractiveness. While physical attractiveness is a subjective evaluation at least two objective dimensions of physical attractiveness are height and hair. In terms of height, the United States electorate has not elected a person shorter than the national average for at 42 elections, which goes back 170 years to Benjamin Harrison in 1888. Now, today’s adult male average height is 5’9” and Barack Obama stands at 6’1-1/2”, which with a 4-1/2 inches height advantage certainly bodes well for him on this dimension for his presidential pursuit.
Gordon Patzer
author of “Looks”
http://www.gordonpatzer.com