Erica Grieder reads this Politico piece on Rick Perry and finds no consensus:
…this list draws from those which are suggested in the article in question:• Educational attainment
• Evidence of intellectual labour (Mr Martin: Mr Perry “hasn’t spent his political career marking up the latest Cato or Heritage white papers or reading policy-heavy books late into the night.”)
• A record of having substantive thoughts on the issues of the day, even if those issues haven’t been part of a person’s day job
• A record of understanding the ins and outs of policy issues that are part of the day job
• What a candidate is reading
• What a candidate has written
• “Sheer brains and understanding policy at a deep level” —Dave McNeely, Texas-based journalist
• Predilection for surrounding oneself with clever people
• Seeking out and being receptive to good advice
• Aesthetic giveaways (Cliff Johnson, a lobbyist and Perry supporter, on another colleague: “He smoked a pipe and stayed up late reading everything”)
I was reminded of my old post on Matt Bai’s discussion of how Obama is “cool.” As with the Politico article, it talked about a lot of things, but never really said what exactly “cool” is supposed to mean. My modest proposal: if we must read discussions of candidates in terms of gross categorical adjectives like “cool” and “dumb,” can we at least define the terms?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
In George W. Bush and the Redemptive Dream, psychologist Dan McAdams highlights the difference between intelligence (as in high IQ) and the personality dimension of openness to experience, which is more about being curious, reflective, liking to play with ideas, etc. Many of the items on that list sound to me more like indicators of openness than of intelligence.
Bush was frequently cast by his critics as unintelligent, but that was almost certainly incorrect. Rather, McAdams (and others; see here: http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2006-08702-001) concluded that he is above average in IQ, as have been pretty much all U.S. presidents, but remarkably low in openness. Perhaps Perry fits a similar profile.
I think you are right about openness, and Bush’s lack thereof, “liking to play with ideas” is certainly not the first thing that comes to mind when remembering W. I would wonder what the average intelligence of presidents has been. I suspect a lot higher than average for the population. I wouldn’t doubt W was above average for the population. Is that adequate for the job?
A lefty blogger, and I don’t remember who to credit, some years ago talked about “effective stupidity”. Whether Bush was unable to think through the consequences of his actions, or simply didn’t bother to, the end result was the same. So let’s agree he was “effectively stupid” and not get into big semantic arguments about the details. Does it matter whether Perry was unable to understand his one econ class, or didn’t bother to?