Gravitas

When I saw Christine O’Donnell’s concession speech last night, I thought to myself, there is someone with a complete lack of gravitas.

People without gravitas lose elections, especially when they run for what’s perceived as an important office. I would have voted for O’Donnell anyway, because she would have been a reliable vote for Republicans, and the nation will survive fine enough if a few Senators lack gravitas. But voters see a U.S. Senator as being an important position, and the voters want people in important positions to have gravitas.

I think that gravitas was a factor in several other races in which the Republican candidate lost. I didn’t follow the Nevada race closely, but Sharron Angle probably lacked gravitas. Women generally have less gravitas than men. When women giggle or act cutesy, it totally destroys the perception of gravitas. New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino lacked gravitas, even though he’s an older man. He did some stuff during the campaign which was on the goofy and flaky side, and that hurt him.

This brings us to the Sarah Palin problem. She can never win a presidential election because of her lack of gravitas. Compare her to Margaret Thatcher, a woman of exceptional gravitas. I am aware that there are some readers of my blog who are rooting for her to run and win the Republican nomination. If she were, by some chance, to win the Republican nomination, her loss in the general election is guaranteed because of her lack of gravitas. Essentially, what Palin supporters are really rooting for are four more years of Obama. Stop doing that.

Comments

[rightsaidfred]

It appears the best conservative candidates are occupied elsewhere, e.g. business and medicine.

Modern governance is largely a liberal affair. Campaigns are a liberal thing. Prominent liberal politicians such as Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer have been politicians their whole lives. I can't think of a conservative counterpart, and probably because it is too tiring to be surrounded by a clamoring public that always wants more more more. At least Reid and Schumer can keep promising them more and more, even if they don't deliver. Now that liberal spending and programs are driving the country over the cliff, the conservative candidate pipeline is a little thin.

[mark]

It is my understanding that Angle avoided the local press at the end of the campaign. She should have defended all of her positions. If they are not defensible, she should not have had them! She cannot be any more radical than Rand Paul. Just frustrated that these tea party folks, mostly ladies, scream about not being heard then they run candidates who don't want to talk. Cowardly and deserving of defeat.

[JerseyGuy]

Half Sigma,

I thought you would really enjoy this article:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001848-the-smackdown-of-the-creative-class

Joel Kotkin, a Harry Truman Democrat, although delusional on immigration, often writes some very good things on today's SWPL elite. He has strongly advocated a neo-industrial policy (as do I) to rebuild our industrial economy and to create real wealth building industries.

As he mentions in the article, today's SWPL elite relies heavily on our post-industial policy: excess money creation, ever growing funding of our idiotic universities and other value transfer industries. As we can see, these policies cannot create jobs or real wealth for the majority of Americans, including most of the SWPL themselves over the long term.

I'd like to hear your thoughts....

[jef]

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. - Now, there was a Republican with gravitas.

[lisa]

"I would have voted for O’Donnell anyway, because she would have been a reliable vote for Republicans"

Isn't it time to change your banner "The new politics of common sense. Neither Republican, Democratic, nor Libertarian."

[HS: I'm not pro-Republican, I'm anti-liberal. Republicans are the enemies of my enemies (to use the language of Obama) and therefore my friends.]

[Jehu]

I'd vote for Palin if she was reliable on reducing legal immigration and eliminating and reversing illegal immigration. Since she's not, I won't vote for her. If you want my vote, you've got to be frequently and loudly denounced as a racist by the MSM.

[nooffensebut]

I agree with HS, but he forgot to point out that Palin lost some of her most important races last night. The Alaskan senate race was personal for her, and she lost to a historic write-in campaign. I wonder if Republicans will blame her for losing a shot at senate control. Even before this, many polls showed weak support for Palin among Republicans for the 2012 primary election. I am starting to think that Huckabee is a greater danger because he does perform better in polls, despite seeming to rule out a run in 2012. He is a cross-eyed creationist who raised taxes. I think he could win the primary but turn off independents and make Obama look smart.

[tehag]

"there is someone with a complete lack of gravitas"

I've seen this somewhere before... oh, yes: Karl Rove. What have you done with the real HS? Why did Rove condescend to blog here?

I can state with certainty that O'Donnell (whom I've never seen), Palin, Rice, and the other Republican women have more chance of being gravid than Karl Rove.

Several winning candidates have both gravitas and intelligence: Murray, Brown, Boxer, etc. Is there somewhere to which I can flee to avoid rule by the intelligent and gravitic?

[timon]

During one of the governor debates in Mass., the camera kept cutting to a diagonal shot on Baker, the Republican candidate; when speaking, he would extend one leg behind the other and balance it en pointe. What a faux-pas! It made him seem lackadaisical.

[Alex]

And now APDA has its first senator!!!

[tina]

I like your point. Yes, Palin, O'Donnell, and Angle lack gravitas, however one describes it.

I think you are right about the giggling, but a high voice (Palin)and strange syntax (Palin, Angle) are important contributors. O'Donnell is actually just fine grammatically, but her youth and her giggling contribute to an impression that turns off most voters. Women, because of their higher voices, are at a disadvantage here.

That brings me to Harry Reid. There is no gravitas projected by his physical persona at all. The title of Majority Leader of the Senate confers what gravitas he has, but his perpetually bent posture and his "pedophile voice," (a term I just love and stole from some poster on Sailer's, Auster's, or Mangan's blog),
is so disturbing I think it's hard for anyone to feel he is normal. When I first read he was an ex-boxer I didn't believe it--still not sure I do! I think strange, dirty old man when I listen to him.

Nancy Pelosi is another one who, minus her title, has no gravitas. She wears a manufactured smile and forces her giggles. Her age helps counteract those two things a bit.

[Jack]

tina - I actually think Pelosi does have a certain command (though I can't stand her). Generally, though, women have a harder time with gravitas, and that's because women are not built, physically or mentally, to be leaders like men are.

[Sheila Tone]

No one outside the Ivy League uses that word. I dare you to used that word in a conversation anywhere in Staten Island.

[Sheila Tone]

That word is only appropriate in your milyeeeew.

[lisa]

If you are anti-liberal that most likely means you are conservative. Are you ashamed to state your beliefs? Saying that you are "Neither Republican, Democratic, nor Libertarian" misstates your ideology.

Does being anti-liberal mean that you are for traditional conservative values like opposing gay marriage, opposing gays in the military, against gender equality, approve of anti-sodomy laws approve of prayer in school, etc.

[tina]

Feinstein has gravitas. Too bad that as she has gotten older, she's grown more liberal, but then, I suppose that happens when one is a senator from CA rather than a mayor, for mayors really do have to get something done (at least they did in the 70s and 80s). Diane was a decent executive considering the city she led and the circumstances under which she became mayor.

[Daniel]

I find it so odd that you are this smart HBD guy with generally logical views, but then you would support a candidate like O'Donnell who is a clear idiot.

It seems clear to me that you--someone who values intellect and logic--are more than willing to become an emotional person when it comes to the notion of too much taxation or proles getting too much of your money. At that point you become a purely emotional ideologue who will support anyone who will counter those opinions.

The other alternative is that you're farther along than I am, and that I'll eventually make it to where you are. But I've been reading off and on for a long time and I haven't seen anything to make me think that electing complete dumbness to office because their entrance makes practical sense for you on a couple of issues is a good idea.

Can you please explain to me/us why you support people like O'Donnell?