The tragedy of Arthur Miller’s everyman hero, Willy Loman, is that: “He’s liked, but he's not well liked.”
I believe that likeability—Richard Nixon excepted—is a primary key to winning presidential elections.
Barack Obama was well-liked, which goes far toward explaining why he won in 2008. Whether his likability was a good reason to have voted for him for president, I will leave it to future historians to judge.
The paradox of the 2016 presidential race may be that we are headed for a matchup between two candidates—Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz—neither of whom is “well liked.”
Somewhat exaggerating Cruz’s abrasive personality, I myself have written that Cruz is “impossible to like.” Not impossible—but pretty hard. At least this is my opinion after viewing this year’s GOP presidential debates including the latest.
If Cruz had Marco Rubio’s winning personality, he might be a shoo-in for the nomination and possibly also a favorite to win the presidency. He isn’t, at least regarding the general election.
Regarding Hillary Clinton, I actually like her personally, because I think I understand her, but I doubt this puts me in a majority.
Who will be the winner, who Arthur Miller’s tragic loser, in a 2016 election—probably a first—in which neither candidate may be really “well liked”?
Maybe we will be better off in the long run with a winner who is just “likeable enough”—which is what Barack Obama said about Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Democratic primary debates.
On the other hand, as John Maynard Keynes observed, “in the long run, we are all dead.”
