Bad vibes

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has an interesting post asking what it is that makes some people instinctively react that a candidate is not to be trusted.

Here's the closing paragraphs:

"There's a cultural-political tuning fork out there. And there's a kind of person who heard Clinton's schtick and reacted just as I do to Romney. Some mix of cultural assumptions, experiences, regional imprints, etc.

I feel it to an extent with Bush, though nothing like I do with Romney. And setting aside what people feel about Bush now it was, by and large, the people who reacted so negatively to Clinton who heard Bush and thought, why, what a genuine, down-to-earth guy.

So who makes you hear the dog whistle? And what sort of cultural imprint makes some of us hear it with (a shocking phoney like) Mitt Romney and others with Bill Clinton?"

I don't know where that leaves me. I felt it with Bill Clinton, and I feel it with Romney too.

For me, it's a sense that the candidate would say opposite things to voters on the same day, as long as they couldn't hear each other. Maybe a campaign that appears too obviously poll-driven sets it off; maybe it's how the candidate responds to what appear to be hard but fair questions. Maybe it's even the look in his eyes.

Romney trips it. Edwards trips it, but in a somewhat different way (how anyone can expect that saying you joined a hedge fund to learn about poverty will fly as an answer is beyond me), which I think just means he's not as clever a politician.

Hillary doesn't trip it. Unlike her husband, I think she does have a deep core of beliefs she intends to put into action, and the facades she puts on aren't about hiding an empty suit, they're about hiding something she knows people won't like.

Nobody else trips it either. Richardson's gaffes (Red Sox and Yankees fan is one for the ages) perversely make him seem like an honest guy who has been told he needs to lie, but who's just really bad at it.