You can learn a lot about a politician by how they hold their hands—or how much they talk about the future, or their feelings, or themselves. We live in an age of relentless focus-grouping, but a candidate's unvarnished attitudes and values still peek through in every microexpression and personal pronoun. Content analysis can ferret out aspects of a person's political agenda and personality based on word and gesture alone. Psychology Today asked a range of experts to scrutinize the 2008 front-runners. They uncovered a great deal, from the messages candidates want voters to know—Giuliani won't let you forget that he's a crisis manager, Hillary wants to seem middle-American—to the traits they'd rather hide: a negative worldview, a meandering message, an inability to connect with voters emotionally. And just for fun, we also asked graphologists to examine the candidates' handwriting to see what they could glean about their personalities. Handwriting analysis is not rigorous or scientific, but we thought it would still be interesting to see if the graphologists' conclusions matched those of the other experts.
Content analysis, though, has real predictive power. Optimism, for instance, is assessed by examining how people attribute cause and effect in the world, or by tallying their use of positive and negative words. In the 20th century, the most optimistic candidate won 18 out of the first 22 presidential elections, says Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania. Recent elections have been trickier, but in 1996, the sunniest candidate by far was Bill Clinton. This time around, says Seligman, it's Hillary Clinton who emerges as the most optimistic candidate. (Giuliani is the least.) Hillary also exhibits the emotional tone voters tend to like the most. While it's still far too early to predict which of the candidates will win, it's high time we pegged their style.
Barack Obama
Exemplary quote:
"I won't run if I don't believe that I have a vision and the leadership capacity to create a better future for our kids and a better future for this nation."
Subtext: Obama's rhetorical style—big words, concrete nouns, and lots of thinking verbs—is typically masculine.
Rhetorical style: Obama uses more familiar words than any other candidate. He roams the political landscape and talks about a lot of different things rather than staying on a very narrow track. He's not picking one particular argument, or one particular language pattern. It could be that he's seeking, trying to define himself, and hasn't quite gotten there yet.
Body language: Obama uses a very extensive range of readily readable gestures that make him easy to watch. "He keeps himself physically open and rarely shows any tension in his hands, indicating flexibility," says body language expert Allan Pease. And when Obama stops to talk to someone in a crowd, he focuses on them with all the telltale signs of charisma, says body language expert Patti Ann Wood. "Like Bill Clinton, he gives them significant extended eye contact, leans forward, and stays in their intimate zone of space," says Wood.
Self-definition: The outsider Democrat. "I don't expect that simply because I can move people in speeches that automatically qualifies me... I have to earn this job." He also uses the word "humble" more than the others. Obama is acknowledging that everyone thinks he's a great speechmaker, but that the downside is that people may worry that's all he can do.
Emotional tone: Obama's language style signals machismo: He uses big words, concrete nouns, and language that focuses on the past and future more than on the present moment. Emotionally, he's neither too positive nor too negative.
Political values: Obama does not show a young challenger's audacity so much as a fortunate man's caution. In fact, Obama's nonideological keyword profile is close to Clinton's.
Universal values: Obama values universalism, in the form of social justice; achievement, in the forms of success and ambition; security, in the terms of social order and a personal sense of belonging; and benevolence, in the specific forms of dependability and helpfulness, as when he says, "After the election, I'm going to sit down and figure out how I can be useful."
Handwriting: "The illegibility of Barack Obama's signature and the O that encircles his first and last names show that he's very protective of his private life and there are things he's not willing to share," says Lowe. "The disparity between capital and small letters indicate that he's set his sights high and has a strong belief in himself. There is a great deal of flexibility in the illegible line, which allows him to make quick changes of direction."
Hillary Clinton
Exemplary quote: "I have loved the opportunity the last seven years in New York for people to get to know me."
Subtext: Hillary's "love" fest makes her the most optimistic candidate.
Rhetorical style: Rhetorically as politically, Hillary Clinton is middle of the road. She's in the middle of the group on almost all 40 variables of language style—she employs a cautious, not very distinctive style. In general, she's very low profile, rarely referring to herself and avoiding overstatements.
