Why Are Male Democratic Presidential Candidates All Losing?

A fascinating thing has occurred among the Democratic candidates. It's a kind of gender role reversal in communication style. Contrary to decades of research, the male Democratic presidential candidates sound more equivocal than the woman.

As a rule, women use more aligning actions (gestures and phrases softening their comments) and disclaimers ("I don't want to sound annoyed, but...") and often pay for it in promotions to leadership positions. But in the debate last night, Barack Obama used the term "I think" repeatedly. While this shouldn't be completely excluded from anyone's speech, more often than not it weakens subsequent assertions. The question arises in audience member's minds: Do you just think it or do you know it?

Obama was supposed to differentiate himself from Clinton yesterday. And in substance he did. In his delivery of that substance, he did not.

Barack Obama's problem is not that he is weak, inexperienced, or simply not ready to be president. It is that he hasn't persuasively eradicated those perceptions. He tends to give speeches rather than relate to voters at the podium. The distinction is critical. He needs to attend to the way he talks so that what he has to say is heard and, importantly, remembered.

Christopher Dodd has been improving his communication. On Meet The Press last Sunday when Tim Russert repeatedly reduced journalism to "but you said something different in 2002" and played "gotcha" again last night during the debate, Dodd's answers were largely crisp, direct, strong, and supported. Joe Biden has been much more on-target, forthright and even witty lately as well, reducing his tendency to wander and undermine his credibility. He isn't running against Clinton, he assured us, but for the presidency. And he says that as if he means it. Their primary problem -- these improvements have come late.

Kucinich has a magnetism problem. He is assured, but Clinton sounds so too and has grabbed far more attention by being interesting and occasionally violating expectations -- gender ones included -- another aspect of memorable persuasion, especially for women. Kucinich looks at the questioners, Hillary adeptly divides her time between them and the audience -- us. Few things would help Kucinich more that talking TO us. In fact, all but Clinton could do more of this.

Edwards and Obama often include too much information in a response. Clinton is more clear -- in part by being concise. During a debate, she doesn't risk the let-me-tell-you-a-story preference of Richardson. It's too long-winded and worse, meandering -- a trait, ironically, attributed more often to women.

Edwards warmed up to clarity and forcefulness in the debate but he needed to do so earlier. He needs to waste less time, for example, telling us he isn't perfect and tell us why she isn't. And it would help to stop sounding like he's giving a speech. He and Obama have this problem. JFK was able to do that but times have changed and he was a master of style balance.

Edward's list of Hillary's corporate sponsors is persuasive support for limitations on her ability to make substantial changes. But again his delivery of this criticism did not make the most of it. He needs to drive home such promising criticisms -- conduct triage on his key points.

Should the presidency be determined by who sounds like a leader? Of course not. But when people are struggling for cues, candidates need to deliver. Hillary is doing that. She's shown compassion and concern in other venues and uses debates to show she has the "right stuff" to be president. She knows context dictates persuasive style.

She was getting a bit ruffled later in the debate, especially with Russert, smirking even at times, which shows she can be provoked and perturbed. And that side of her doesn't sell well.

If Barack Obama and John Edwards are to gain ground against Clinton, they'll need to drop the "I think" and Well-let's-look-at-it-this-way, long-winded, nearly monotonic style, increase the passion in their comments when they feel strongly about issues, use phrases that draw attention to those views (e.g., "Now this is key" and "Remember this"), answer succinctly, look at us without appearing practiced, and pay more attention to delivering their own message than to intercepting hers. If they don't, and Hillary for some reason falls in the ratings, it's beginning to look like they might have Chris Dodd or Joe Biden to deal with as those two are on a roll.

Comments

[Zhonni]

Perhaps becuase they are running agaist a household name?

[wm1066]

I don't buy that male Democrats are losing!
Your believing a false premise. The media has crowned Hillary, the voters haven't spoken yet.

[Ravenlea]

Maybe the problem is that the media (or the forces controlling the media) have decided that there are only three candidates and have engaged in a virtual white-out of anything the so-called "lesser" candidates say. (I give you points for at least mentioning the names of the others here.) We are told that Hillary is winning in the polls, but we don't know what the polls are actually asking or who is being asked. I know at least two polls which she is not winning:

http://democracyforamerica.com/pulsepoll - at present Kucinich is way ahead followed by Gore.

http://www.dehp.net/candidate/ - Kucinich leads by a wide margin here as well.

The only people being given any real air time are Clinton, Obama and Edwards and the media keeps telling us what they have decided we think rather than allowing us to form opinions on our own. It's very frustrating and it's another blow to the nation continuing to actually be a democracy. We really need to wake up before it's too late.

In case you haven't guessed, Kucinich has my vote. He's a good man and he's the only one with the courage and decency to be pushing impeachment of Cheney and Bush. Here's an excellent interview he did with Judy Woodruff on PBS: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec07/kucinich_10-04.html

[Mark701]

I have to wonder if George Washington or John Adams ran for president today, whether they would stand a chance. For me, I don't care how the canidates come across, I am listening to their ideas. Hillary concerns me because of her stance on Iran and her growing debt to our corporate elite.Paul Krugman recently hit the nail on the head regarding Hillary. He wondered whether, if she became our next president, we weren't electing a "bourbon democrat" like Grover Cleveland i.e. a DINO. I will support whichever democrat emerges from the primary because our worst is better than their best but I won't be voting for her in the primaries.

[therealredstateblues]

Perhaps the woman look strong in comparison to the castrati male "leadership" in the party - particularly the DLC sell out crew of Rangle, Hoyer, Emanuel and Reid.

[therealredstateblues]

Hillary isn't winning in the sense of winning over labor democrats and she certainly isn't getting any independent support two things she would need to win the big one.

Hillary is only in the lead because the MSM corporate media and manipulated polling says so.

I don't know ANY long time dems that like her or would vote for her under any scenario.

They must be polling republicans and DLCers because they sure aren't asking real democrats who like Edwards and Kucinich and few few for Paul.

Republicans wnat Hillary for two reasons - she will mobilize the nut case base, and if she does win, they get to continue the Bush legacy because Hill is really a neocon in a cheap pantsuit.

[researcher]

biggest reason: the liberal demos are so politically correct they would vote for a female if she couldnt even speak english.

actually hillary is taken all of them to the cleaners on most of her answers.

obama still thinks he is a college prof talking to his students and they had to listen to get the grade.

as soon as obama hired consultants it was downhill from there.

third party please.

[starrianna]

**************
IN A TIME OF SENSELESS WAR,
these boys look like needless testosterone.

PEOPLE ARE DYING,
and these boys are attacking Hillary?

This is not a battle for Kindergarten!
This is perhaps the most important election ever.

[nomobull]

WHY BECAUSE MSM POLLS SAY SO PLEASE QUIT SHOVING POLLS AND HILLARY DOWN OUT THROATS PLEASE LET ISSUES ANSWERS AND RECORDS MAKE UP OUR MINDS. THE MSM DID NOT DO SUCH A GREAT JOB THE LAST TIME OUT. AS A FEMALE I WOULD LOVE A WOMAN PRESIDENT BUT RICE AND PELOSI HAVE TAUGHT ME WE NEED MORE THAN A TALKING HEAD IN A POSITION OF POWER.AND I JUST DON'T TRUST ANYTHING WILL CHANGE WITH HER IN OFFICE.

[troywilliams2007]

you must mean the white male candidates are losing including hillary, barack is winning in iowa and among independents he is beating hillary in new hampshire and south carolina where they can vote in either primary.

also even hillarys people are saying that she may be over counting her support from the black community once barack wins iowa black america will then be assured that he can and will win.

Obama '08

[Dantheman99]

I agree that this analysis is silly. Not because it isn't true, for the debate performance is well analyzed.

What an altnernative candidate to Clinton needs more than debating skills is a robust policy agenda that differs from Clinton DLC-retreads.

Kucinich has it, but the corporate owned media has already decided that someone beholden to them shouldn't be taken seriously.

The establishment has decided that Clinton, Obama or Edwards will be the nominee, period. If Edwards or Obama are going to become the Clinton alternative they need to galvanize the angry base. They need to run against her timid agenda and the cowardice displayed on capitol hill. Neither one will do that and they will likely cancel each other at.

Hillary has done well at these debates and kudos to her.

However, no debating point or style is going to change the fundamental dynamics of the race one iota. Obama, Edwards and others need to be rethinking their strategy, not their tactics. It's late in the game and only 10 weeks before voting starts.

Drops the media consultants and focus groups and tap into the anger that gave the Democrats the Congressional majority at the 2006 election and the sense of betrayal that the base feels now. Tie Clinton to the feckless Congressional leadership. THAT, not a new speaking style, will create the possibility to shake up the race.

None of this will happen and Hillary will be the nominee. It's practically all over but for the shouting.

[elleng]

Male Democratic candidates are losing because none of them is Wes Clark.

[LindaJay]

I think something we are missing is that Tim Russert & company didn't allow this to be a REAL debate at all. Instead, he made it all about discrediting Hillary and very little else. Here are some facts from a post over at Taylor Marsh:

"There were 52 questions asked last night; 25 had to do with either Hillary or Bill Clinton, including very personal insinuations, with 22 of the 25 being abjectly hostile.

Tim Russert asked 26 questions; 14 were to Clinton, with 5 directly targeting her personally. "

http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=26485

Russert seems to have taken it upon himself to forget about why he is there and what his function should be - to moderate a debate equally among all the contenders - and make the whole thing an ill-disguised hit piece against Hillary Clinton.

Now make no mistake - I'm not apologizing for Clinton, nor is she my favorite candidate in the running. She is basically at the bottom of the list for me. But when our supposed unbiased news gets to frame who the debate is about, who gets discredited, who gets asked real questions, and on and on - what we end up with is a big farce.

It is really time for the MSM to get out of trying to influence the election process. We saw what happened when it was Bush vs. Gore. Bush got a free pass on everything, though just a tiny bit of digging would have shown that he was lying. But Gore got repeatedly skewered. Do we really want these clowns choosing our candidates and what the questions are for us?

[HaroldBeu]

One of the most important factors of Hillary's dominance in the polls is her high name recognition. She is the best known candidate of either party in the primary. But also, her gender and marriage to a President, who in hindsight seems to have reigned over a golden age, give her an edge. However, all these factors have nothing to do with her qualifications for the presidency. Sadly, we live in a celebrity-dominated media world in which former movie stars, TV comedians and wives of way-ward Presidents get the attention over seasoned, qualified politicians. I believe that Chris Dodd is the most qualified candidate at this point, but at the postmorten after the debates on MSNBC, his named never came up. You can't win if you are not known.

[Dap]

Dear Dr. Reardon,

Another excellent post. My concern with Hillary was for the most part electability in a general election. She have without any doubt met that test, as you say she has the "Right Stuff" and is cleaarly *No* cream puff. Agape.