Charisma

In retrospect, it's not really clear to me why I thought it would be a good idea to snap this photo of Bill Clinton with my phone. There are, after all, tons and tons of photos of Clinton available on the internet and the odds of this shot being any good were terrible. Indeed, I took it sitting in a room featuring many professional photographers (who seem obsessed with capturing a signature hand gesture) using high-quality equipment. But I guess that's the nature of charisma and celebrity. He was in the room. I had a device that can take pictures. It seemed like the thing to do.

Comments

Look, there's just this impulse to take the guy's picture.

I had it last Spring at the Harvard graduation, where I was seated miles away from him in the yard, he was barely a speck up on the stage. So I've got these two pictures of the back of some guy's bald head in the row in front of me and next to it, in the far distance, this tall guy with silver hair and blue suit up on the stage.

Your picture looks really great next to mine.

Posted by David in NY | September 27, 2007 3:45 PM

He wears neon pink ties?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 27, 2007 3:55 PM

I saw Clinton speak at a Joe Sestak rally last year. I was blown away. I couldn't do anything but listen to him speak. Only later did it occur to me that I should have taken a photo.

Posted by Naveen | September 27, 2007 3:57 PM

Your low-quality (aka "candid") photo is proof that you were there to take it. In other words, it is a souvenir of your time in the presence of the Sun King.

Posted by DTM | September 27, 2007 4:09 PM

Clinton walks in a room and it lights up.
Bush walks in a room and the same thing happens.
Of course Bush's room is screened and under strict orders to light up but hey, what the hell.

Posted by steve duncan | September 27, 2007 4:13 PM

"Your low-quality (aka "candid") photo is proof that you were there to take it. In other words, it is a souvenir of your time in the presence of the Sun King."

Yup.

-----

Hey. I've got an idea!

Maybe Bill Clinton is so charismatic that, like Alabama did with George Wallace, we should elect his wife to his office to overcome the problem of term limits!

Posted by Petey | September 27, 2007 4:13 PM

This isn't unique to Clinton. People are eager to take their own low-quality photos of any celebrity. My most viewed photo on Flickr is a bad shot I got of Dennis Kucinich at Take Back America. I'm not a fan of his, but it seemed the thing to do at the time.

Posted by KCinDC | September 27, 2007 4:25 PM

Oh, Matt, you have such a crush

Posted by Campesino | September 27, 2007 4:49 PM

Hey. I've got an idea!

Maybe Bill Clinton is so charismatic that, like Alabama did with George Wallace, we should elect his wife to his office to overcome the problem of term limits!

Posted by Petey | September 27, 2007 4:13 PM
***********************************************

Not unless Hillary changes her name to Lurleen!

Posted by Campesino | September 27, 2007 4:53 PM

Not only does Bill Clinton light up a room, he lights up a street in the middle of the day.

On 9/12/01, Clinton - having rushed back from Australia - visited ground zero. He walked all the way from the top of the frozen zone on 14th St. I was able to snap a picture of him walking down University Place from my apartment, 7 storeys above.

All you could see was a big white head with scores of grieving admirers crowded around.

Posted by Tractarian | September 27, 2007 4:55 PM

"Not unless Hillary changes her name to Lurleen!"

Wow. I just saw Bill Clinton's defense of why Hillary won't call for his donors to be made public. They really are doing the Full Lurleen.

Posted by Petey | September 27, 2007 5:29 PM

That really is one hell of a tie.....

Posted by Xenoliths | September 27, 2007 7:33 PM

Term limits schmerm limits. FDR served just over 3 terms and if he had lived longer, would still have been a better president than almost anyone who could have replaced him.

Posted by DRR | September 27, 2007 8:02 PM

Clinton's charisma is a polarizing sort; Some people adore him instantly, while for others it's immediate loathing. I think it's got something to do with whether you've got ideological reasons to override what your BS detector is trying to tell you... Or maybe it's just that the notorious charm of the sociopath only effects those he's trying to charm.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | September 27, 2007 8:43 PM

Clinton's charisma is a polarizing sort; Some people adore him instantly, while for others it's immediate loathing. I think it's got something to do with whether you've got ideological reasons to override what your BS detector is trying to tell you... Or maybe it's just that the notorious charm of the sociopath only effects those he's trying to charm.

I think you're pretty well describing George W. Bush there. The man's career is BS.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | September 27, 2007 9:35 PM

At some point early in Clinton's first primary campaign, when I had little idea who he was, I looked at a photograph of him and suddenly knew he was going to be president.

Same with George W. Bush, even before his first primary campaign began.

In 2004, it was...er...Joe Lieberman.

This time around: no clue.

My charismadar is obviously failing.

Posted by Swift Loris | September 27, 2007 10:52 PM

It takes a confident man to wear a blazing pink tie like that.

Posted by Lisa | September 27, 2007 10:58 PM

I think a photo like this (and Matt's description of the intense urge to take such a photo) does a good job capturing what it's like to be in the audience when A Very Important Person is speaking. You're at once underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the same time.

Posted by Philly | September 27, 2007 11:01 PM

"I think you're pretty well describing George W. Bush there."

There are people who actually adore George W. Bush? News to me.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | September 27, 2007 11:23 PM

There are people who actually adore George W. Bush? News to me.

Haha.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | September 28, 2007 12:18 AM

Clinton's charisma is a polarizing sort; Some people adore him instantly, while for others it's immediate loathing.

Bill Clinton isn't nearly as polarizing as the right wishes and certainly not when speaking.

His 1998 "State of the Union" speech was the ultimate proof of his charisma - the day before the speech he was considered a goner. The day after his ratings had reached an all time high - jumping 16 points over the week before.

Posted by Jinchi | September 28, 2007 2:00 AM

Eugene McCarthy was the last politician I thought had charisma. Then I got older. After you get to be an adult, you realize that they're all Ambition's androids. Herndon wrote of Lincoln -- our most charismatic politician -- that his ambition was a little engine that knew no rest.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 28, 2007 8:58 AM

Clinton's charisma is a polarizing sort; Some people adore him instantly, while for others it's immediate loathing. I think it's got something to do with whether you've got ideological reasons to override what your BS detector is trying to tell you... Or maybe it's just that the notorious charm of the sociopath only effects those he's trying to charm

There is a fairly well-known section in David Brock's book BLINDED BY THE RIGHT where he describes a visit by Barbara Comstock. He watches TV with her and when clips of Clinton's Whitewater testimony come on a news program she starks shrieking and screaming at the video image, calling him a liar and essentially becoming a one-woman riot.

I mention that to say this: I mainly get my political news from the local papers, plus TPM and the like, plus blogs(and some judicious dollops of the Daily Show & Colbert report). At least part of the reason for that stems from watching Bush's infamous 2004 press conference (you know, the one where he said he hadn't made any mistakes). The more I watched, the more emotionally irrational I got, to the point where, yes, I started talking back to the screen myself, calling him a liar and wondering aloud why no one was either running away as fast as they could from such a dangerous lunatic or hauling him off in cuffs right then and there before he hurt anyone, since he was obviously unbalanced, if not outright dangerous/psychotic.

It was a visceral, gut reaction and I'm not proud of it, as I like to think of myself as beaing as rational and reasonable as the next guy or girl. Unfortunately, the next guy/girl is presumably Barbara Comstock. Anyway, this seems, on some subterranean level to tie in with MY's emotional reaction to Clinton's presence. I reckon, depending on one's inclinations, it can range from charisma-inspired awe to arachnid revulsion and the SAME PERSON can inspire either feeling.

Posted by jonathan | September 28, 2007 9:18 AM