Wow.

ilovecharts:

-Ben Greenman, via McSweeney’s

The presumptive Republican nominee looks pretty much like a presidential contender should, with the right business-y haircut, dazzling smile and nice-seeming family. But he has a really hard time connecting with voters.

Over at the Atlantic, Brian Fung says this is because he’s like a creepy robot — almost too perfect, yet wrong, and therefore deep in Uncanny Valley.

Romney looks right, but is undeniably uncomfortable in public situations, sinking into awkward moments where he does not seem to know where to put his limbs. Or breaking into uncomfortable song. Robots do this too, and it’s discomfiting when they’re so close to human, but missing that essential element.

(via Mitt Romney: The Uncanny Candidate? | Popular Science)

The reading that it makes Santorum resemble the common man misses the fact that the common man finds himself encased in such garments only under duress: The job requires it; it’s in the employee handbook; corporate said I had to; the boss would frown upon me if I didn’t. It is in fact an object of tragedy.

Rob Walker: Santorum’s Tragic Sweater Vest: Observers Room: Design Observer

bagnewsnotes:

Bag’s Take-Away:

Well, Gingrich might as well have the South tattooed on his face.

The what: At last night debate, Newt received a standing ovation as he reiterated his belief that poor kids should work as janitors in response to Juan Williams’ question asking him if he understood that black people felt such employment would be aimed at them. He’s not going much further, everyone knows that, and to make sure, he’s branded himself with racism. The emblem is the Tea Party of South Carolina logo. Newt addressed the group Monday night.

(photo: XXXXXX caption: Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich walks past the projected Tea Party of South Carolina logo as he arrives to speak at the South Carolina Tea Party Convention on Monday afternoon, Jan. 16, 2012, in Myrtle Beach, S.C.)

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Topping LIFE.com’s 2011 list of Best Photo Blogs, follow us at: BagNewsNotes; BAG Twitter; BAG Facebook; Bag by Email.

bagnewsnotes:

Bag’s Take-Away:

Initially, the media seemed to like Huntsman as the reasonable conservative. (Heh, no wonder he never got off the ground.)

Now, he’s become this object of ridicule, framed with this big microphone and teeny platform, talking to nobody. And, doesn’t it look like the supporter on the left is cracking up over how ineffectual he is? Poor man’s fallen victim to the more immediate media framing: America hates losers.

via: The New York Times Lens Blog

(photo credit: Cj. Gunther/European Pressphoto Agency caption: Jon M. Huntsman, Jr., a former governor of Utah and former ambassador to China, addressed supporters in front of the State Capitol in Concord, N.H. Mr. Huntsman, who had not campaigned in Iowa, finished seventh in the caucuses there on Tuesday.)

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Topping LIFE.com’s 2011 list of Best Photo Blogs, follow us at: BagNewsNotes; BAG Twitter; BAG Facebook; Bag by Email.

Inside the Post-It Note Anti-Obama Revolution | The Awl

Chris Lotto, Arizona activist and co-creator of the “The ‘Hope and Change’ Sticky Note Campaign,” a movement that places anti-Obama sticky notes on gas pumps.

Yes, America, like a couple on the verge of divorce, can only communicate with Post-Its®.

Last Saturday afternoon, Lotto, who lives in Phoenix, launched the Facebook call to “Purchase a pad of large sticky notes. Write on each one, “How’s that Hope & Change working out for you?” Every time you stop to fill your vehicle with gas, place your sticky note somewhere on the pump before you drive away. DO NOT be destructive in ANY way! Place your sticky note somewhere, so as not to impede the next customer’s ability to read the pump’s digital readout.”

Fascinating.

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