Looking good means votes for presidential hopefuls according to study

It’s how you look, not so much what you say, that gets votes from uninformed American couch potatoes. I know you’re going to say, “But Dave, your ugly and running for president.”

So, in my usual quest for the truth about this important subject I found this article:

By Sophie Quinton
National Journal

“Frequent TV viewers who don't get any kinds of other political news are the voters most likely to be influenced by a candidate's physical appearance, a new Massachusetts Institute of Technology study shows.

"Voters who watch a lot of television but don't really know much about the candidates besides how they look are particularly susceptible," Chappell Lawson, coauthor of the study, told MIT News. "The size of the effect is roughly equivalent to the influence of incumbency."

MIT associate professors Lawson and Gabriel Lenz evaluated data from the 2006 U.S. Senate and governor's races. They found that for every 10-point increase in the advantage a candidate had when rated by voters on his or her looks, there was a 5 percent increase in support for that candidate from uninformed voters who said they watch a lot of television.

Uninformed voters who said they watch little TV only supported the candidate by an additional 1 percent.”

graphic source