Opinion: Face time
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Want to know the actual feelings of the Democratic presidential contenders as they parry questions tonight in the CNN/YouTube debate and try to project that they enjoy being on stage and interacting with each other? One option: check out The Face of Politics, a blog devoted to ignoring verbiage and concentrating on facial reactions.
The blog’s mission is to track the campaign’s ‘ups and its downs ... but more importantly its smiles and its frowns.’
The site is the brainchild of Dan Hill, 47, who’s made a career out of probing beyond verbal responses to analyze the behavior of consumers and employees for an array of business clients. He’s the president of Sensory Logic Inc. in St. Paul; the blog is a sidelight that he recently unveiled.
Although he stresses that he does not discount the importance of a person’s words, he also says language ‘is not the only means, or the best means’ for getting a read on someone. For his money, ‘The face is the best place in the body to communicate emotions.’
He adds ...
... ‘There is no muscle in the face that is a lying muscle.’
Hill plans to intensify his offbeat study of the candidates as the race for the White House heats up, but he’s already got some pointed observations to make.
Republican Rudy Giuliani’s mouth, he advises, ‘rests naturally in a bitter expression.’
He does give Giuliani credit for making strides in lightening up his look, which he says is a smart move by the former New York mayor. In Hill’s view, ‘Generally speaking, the sunnier disposition’ tends to win presidential elections.
Among more traditional pundits, Republican Mitt Romney is widely seen as a candidate on the move. But Hill sees a potential disconnect problem --- even as the former Massachusetts governor utters words of optimism, his face does not project the same message. Romney does not seem to be ‘a sunny man,’ he says.
Hill also says he’s looking forward to more exposure for Romney because so far, he finds him facially ‘the most opaque’ of the major contenders.
Hill’s take on Democrat Hillary Clinton squares with analysts who have opined that her candidacy may be stymied because she does not come across as particularly likeable to many voters. Contributing to this perception, Hill says, is that Clinton seems to struggle to ‘get to a true smile.’
He gauges a ‘true smile’ not by what the mouth does, but by what happens around the eyes. When those muscles are engaged, you aren’t just faking a good vibe.
For Hill, the classic example of a politician who failed this test was John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee. He says Kerry ‘couldn’t get to a true smile to save his life.’
The Face of Politics plans to have video and its analysis of telling moments in tonight’s debate posted on Tuesday. You also might want to check out its companion blog, Face of the Week.
-- Don Frederick