Some might see this as superficial, but it's a real thing. In a choice between presidential candidates, American voters historically have
overwhelmingly chosen the taller one:
[S]ince 1900, the taller guy has won the presidential election 19 times, while the shorter candidate has won just eight times – and that includes the year 2000 in which George W. Bush, the shorter candidate, didn't win the popular vote against the taller Al Gore. In two of these elections, candidates were the same height.
Since Trump seems to be getting bored with the whole presidential campaigning thing, now that he's no longer topping the polls, and I refuse to believe that a substantial number of people, even if they are Republicans, could seriously choose the vague and ill-informed lunatic Ben Carson to be more than a nose-tweak of the party Establishment, that leaves Marco Rubio as the most likely GOP nominee.
Marco Rubio's campaign lists his height at 5 foot 10, but that seems to be just another of the fables the conservative electorate seems willing to swallow over the evidence of their own eyes.
Observers tend to put his actual height at somewhere between 5 foot 6 and 5 foot 9.
Interestingly, Hillary Clinton is 5 foot 7, putting the Dem and Repub nominees at approximately the same, er, standing, elevator shoes and high heels notwithstanding.
Gregg Murray, an associate professor of political science at Texas Tech University, has been studying physical components as they relate to political preference for a while now. Most recently he looked at height, weight and body mass index, or BMI, a measurement calculated from weight and height. He found there's an instinctual preference for leaders who are more "physically formidable," especially in times of strife.
"It's sort of this flash impression that people have," Murray says. Tallness is a factor, but also voters could be looking for candidates who simply look healthy and strong. "The BMI measure was right at the top end of normal weight – it was like right below being overweight," Murray explains.
And here Rubio's baby face comes into play. No matter what he has to say, he looks like a middle-schooler, or at most a high school freshman, earnestly reciting the lessons given to him to learn by his elders.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has cultivated the steely Margaret Thatcher-type Iron Lady persona that in a debate setting will make Rubio look like a child in comparison in terms of experience and personal formidableness.
If polls are to be believed, Hillary, with the help of her friends in the DNC, seems to have successfully closed out Bernie Sanders' chances of gaining wider exposure to Democratic primary voters in the short window of time left before the actual primaries begin, and that's too bad.
I have my doubts that very many of the populist positions Bernie's run has gotten Hillary to espouse will survive even as long as until the general election campaign is underway, and that's a shame.
But barring some more serious contender stepping late into the Republican race, I can't see Democrats losing the presidency in 2016 to the likes of Marco Rubio. Unfortunately, I also can't see much enthusiasm for maintaining the status quo, that might lead to coat-tails and re-taking the House or Senate either, such as a Bernie wave might have produced.
Oh well, you can't have everything.