In candidates, voters say they want personal connection
HAMPTON, N.H. - Sandy Brunelle, blown away by Barack Obama when she went for the first time to hear him speak on Sunday afternoon, described him in glowing terms: "Personable, positive, very likable."
But after listening to Hillary Clinton answer questions for nearly two hours at a high school Sunday night, Brunelle found herself drawn in a much deeper way.
"Obama gives a speech," said Brunelle, 55, who works the third shift in the mailroom of Liberty Mutual. "She's not as boisterous, but she's talking one-on-one to all these people. She's got my vote."
Likability, that emotional connection between candidate and voter, could play a decisive role in both the Democratic and Republican primaries today. The equation is not simply about feeling comfortable enough to imagine having a beer or cup of coffee with a candidate, voters said in interviews across New Hampshire over the last couple of days. Rather, they said, likability is a blend of trustworthiness, compassion, honesty, and directness - qualities that disaffected voters feel Washington desperately needs.
Some voters say they struggle to relate to the multimillionaire Mitt Romney, perhaps helping explain his defeat in Iowa at the hands of the underfunded but affable everyman Mike Huckabee.
"Likability is going to be huge," said Paula Young, 42, an independent from Wolfeboro who is supporting Huckabee. "The whole world is watching us. We haven't been very popular, and there have been decisions that are less than appreciated worldwide. The next president has to come out shining."
Likability also translates to electability - something particularly important to Demo crats, whose last two nominees were pilloried as elitist stiffs.
"Too many people vote based on who they like, not what they stand for," said Kris Gallo, 38, a teacher who lives in Hooksett. "Regardless of whether we like it or not, it's going to be a major factor in this campaign."
New Hampshire voters have spent the better part of a year trolling political events, searching for that special bond.
Esther Kennedy, 42, an independent voter from Portsmouth, said she cannot tell whether she likes a candidate by watching him or her on television. One reason she chose John Edwards was seeing how the former senator often skipped over the well-dressed people in the crowd when he took questions to let the more rumpled, less-prosperous-looking folks have a chance.
"The way he reacted with people was very likable," she said. "I don't want a president who is just going to play to big money and forget about us."
Likability plays a critical role in presidential races because the office is so important that voters want to feel they truly know the person who will be in the White House, said Democratic consultant Peter Fenn, who is neutral in this campaign.
"These are the folks who would have their fingers on the button, and they want to have a three-dimensional sense of them," he said.
Clinton, who is often criticized for seeming colder and more distant than Obama, launched a last-minute charm offensive yesterday, making herself more accessible to local and national media, knocking on doors, and even choking up in a conversation with undecided voters at a coffee shop. Over the weekend, she made a point of staying and answering voters' questions for more than an hour at her events, a departure from her recent habit. It seemed to win over voters like Brunelle.
Like Clinton, Obama has spent more time at large rallies than small forums, and he rarely took questions at his weekend events, which drew thousands. But at his best, Obama manages to establish a strong bond with his audience by combining a stirring call for political transformation with a keenly timed sense of humor.
He jokes about how "my cousin, Dick Cheney" (Cheney's wife, Lynne, discovered during research for a book that Cheney and Obama are eighth cousins) won't be on the ballot this fall, and about how Republicans come up to him sometimes after his speeches, whispering that they support him.
" 'That's great,' " Obama said, affecting a stage whisper as he relates the anecdote. " 'But why are we whispering?' "
Voters at his rallies rhapsodize about Obama's ability to inspire them to care about politics again, as if the candidate had personally invited them to help change Washington. "He makes politics important for me again," said Paula Cerilli, 52, an independent voter from Manchester who saw Obama at a rally with Oprah Winfrey last month. "I felt helpless under George Bush, like there wasn't anything I could do to change anything."
On the Republican side, it is Romney who suffers from a likability gap. In Iowa, he lost to Huckabee, the bass guitar-playing Baptist minister known for his pithy one-liners. In New Hampshire, polls show Romney trailing John McCain, the war hero who brands himself as a straight-shooter. At a rally in downtown Concord yesterday, McCain introduced two congressmen from Arizona traveling with him, accusing them of shivering in the 40-degree weather. "Wimps, by the way."
"John McCain has it, period, because he's honest," said George Newkirk, 78, an independent voter from New London. "He is a man I trust with my grandkids' future, and my great-grandkids'."
"And he smiles, and he's warm," said Newkirk's wife, Joan, 75.
Romney has used his picture-perfect family to try to endear himself to voters. In Nashua on Saturday, he walked in holding his grandson Parker, a wide-eyed toddler whose affinity for the cameras reliably causes audiences to laugh and coo. Romney has also, sparingly, begun making fun of himself, saying that his response to opponents who have been beating up on him is, "Don't touch the hair."
Romney delivers the jokes in his stump speech almost perfectly and he is rarely without a smile on the campaign trail. But, in interviews, voters described him as "Teflon" and "too smooth." His appeals to voters' logic are sometimes undercut by his inability, or reluctance, to project empathy, and he has switched positions on a number of issues, leading some to question his trustworthiness.
It did not help that, at the debate on Saturday night, fellow Republicans took turns slamming him. The next day, Claire McHugh, 68, a Republican from Nashua and fervent Romney supporter, showed up at a Romney rally with carnations. "Just to cheer him up," she said. "To let him know I like him."
Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com. 