In CMC class today, we listened to Dr. Devitto's lecture on elections. In her lecture, Dr. Devitto mentioned how focus groups and other entities sought ought certain qualities in a candidate. The qualities discussed were:
- Appearance: How one looks as a candidate (body language, posture, diction, manner of dress, etc.)
- Intelligence: A candidate's grasp of issues (could they understand the problems plaguing their possible future and find ways to overcome them)
- Character: How a candidate is perceived, both professionally and personally (despite how mudslinging has gotten muddled into politics, people still dislike attacks on a person's character)
- Interpersonal Relations: A candidate's ability to empathize (that is, could a candidate understand the troubles of an average citizen)
And when she was asked--from me--about which quality was most important, Dr. Devitto astonishly enough didn't mention any of the above qualities, but rather, she said that from her standpoint, the best quality of a good political leader was the quality of a politician to not only dictate to the people what their values are but also to be able to compromise when neccessary without jepardizing the values being promoted (in using Obama as an example, Dr. Devitto said that whilst Obama did have to change his time table for troop removal in Iraq, Obama still didn't really defy his stance, because it is said that Obama still plans to remove the troops, despite the time table change he had to make).
