Does intelligence matter to you in a candidate?

[Torie]

I want a president who knows how to make good policy.  Other kinds of intelligence can be either a bonus or a liability, depending on the person and circumstances.  But, in the long run, if a president doesn't know how to craft good policy, none of the rest maters that much to me.

What our prevailing political orthodoxies deprive us of is the realization that you can't make good policy by applying the same principles and approaches all the time, regardless of the demands of a particular situation.  Good policymaking requires flexibility, adaptation, and constant self-correction.  We, as voters, have been conditioned by party politics and the media to penalize candidates and presidents for flexibility, we often take them to signify a lack of principle and weakness.  And, to the degree that we do, we shortchange the most important kind of political intelligence.  

In a word, PRAGMATISM.  The longer I am on this mortal coil, the less I think of ideology as a very useful analytical tool. The world is just too complex these days to just open your favorite ideological cookbook  to come up with appropriate recipes. 

[Torie]

Intelligence matters a great deal to me. However, the smartest president's we have had were certainly the worst. Nixon, Quincy Adams, Wilson, etc.

The smartest of all was Lincoln - going away. 

TDR was also super smart by the way.  He also had a photographic memory, and could quote whole pages of text from books verbatim years after he had read it. He also never forgot a face.

[Oakvale]

I think it's pretty hard to win the Presidency without having a decent helping of intelligence. Even Bush didn't really seem dumb to me, I think a lot of that was folksy affectation. The only President that springs to mind as being of notably below-average intelligence is Reagan. Ford also had a bad reputation on the intellectual front but it's not like he was elected, and being fodder for Chevy Chase doesn't necessarily make you stupid.

[memphis]

I think it's pretty hard to win the Presidency without having a decent helping of intelligence. Even Bush didn't really seem dumb to me, I think a lot of that was folksy affectation. The only President that springs to mind as being of notably below-average intelligence is Reagan. Ford also had a bad reputation on the intellectual front but it's not like he was elected, and being fodder for Chevy Chase doesn't necessarily make you stupid.

People are smart in different ways. Reagan was a master of persuading people. Even more than most presidents. That's definately a form of intelligence. Even in a narrowly defined SAT sort of intelligence, any Prez is going to be light years ahead of average. Ever met an average person?

[Politico]

I suspect the smartest president in history was Nixon or Jefferson.

[Insula Dei]

Intelligence is overrated.  Woodrow Wilson was one of the smartest men to ever be president, but was a terrible human being, which outweighed his brainpower.  Herbert Hoover was likewise brilliant, but far too ideologically brittle to adapt to the Depression.

Why stop there. Anybody doubt the intelligence of Stalin or Mao?

Mao was a skilled military tactician, but genius?

Actually, I believe Mao is widely regarded by those who ought to know as one of the greatest Chinese poets of the 20th century as well, on the merit of his aphorisms in the Little Red Book and elsewhere. Obviously smothering your competition as Mao must have done by turning against the intellectuals with such vehemence does count as cheating a bit, but he still was a bit of a literary genius.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Intelligence and leadership ability matter more to me than issue positions.

You were born too late. All around the world, the early 20th century saw plenty of smart leaders with questionable positions (if you dared question them). But I'm sure you could find a dictatorship in a developing nation that suits your qualifications.

Uh huh. I said that they matter more, not that they are the only things that matter.

[tpfkaw]

Intelligence is very much a mixed bag when it comes to presidents.  I'd mainly go by issue positions, but I keep in mind that less intelligent individuals are more easily manipulable.

[Torie]

I think it's pretty hard to win the Presidency without having a decent helping of intelligence. Even Bush didn't really seem dumb to me, I think a lot of that was folksy affectation. The only President that springs to mind as being of notably below-average intelligence is Reagan. Ford also had a bad reputation on the intellectual front but it's not like he was elected, and being fodder for Chevy Chase doesn't necessarily make you stupid.

Ah, well, we have Andrew Johnson (alcohol may have contributed to his little mental challenges) and Warren Harding (who explicitly admitted that he was a "dumb"). Neither gentleman was as smart as the Gipper I don't think. Ronnie just didn't like to read much, other than learn his lines. He would rather spend his time doing physical things, like horse riding, pumping iron, and chopping wood.

[memphis]

I think it's pretty hard to win the Presidency without having a decent helping of intelligence. Even Bush didn't really seem dumb to me, I think a lot of that was folksy affectation. The only President that springs to mind as being of notably below-average intelligence is Reagan. Ford also had a bad reputation on the intellectual front but it's not like he was elected, and being fodder for Chevy Chase doesn't necessarily make you stupid.

Ah, well, we have Andrew Johnson (alcohol may have contributed to his little mental challenges) and Warren Harding (who explicitly admitted that he was a "dumb"). Neither gentleman was as smart as the Gipper I don't think. Ronnie just didn't like to read much, other than learn his lines. He would rather spend his time doing physical things, like horse riding, pumping iron, and chopping wood.

The man was in the early stages of dementia. You may as well fault him for not wanting to read 500 page books as you would a first grader. And surely you don't believe all that John Wayne posturing that he and W put on for the dumbs was sincere.

[tpfkaw]

There has never been a president with below-average intelligence; it's simply impossible to attain that position without exceptional social skills and above-average mental faculties.  If Reagan was truly so stupid, that speaks poorly for Carter, given the fact that Reagan was popularly considered to have completely flattened him in the debates...

(I'm not saying that Reagan was a good president, merely that saying LOL HE IZ DUM about people one preceives in opposition to them is an extremely childish and non-substantive tack of argumentation).

[TJ in Oregon]

It certainly matters some. Of course it isn't the sole criterion in determining my support. I know plenty of people who are shear geniuses but would be socially, emotionally, and motivationally unqualified to run a popsicle stand let alone the United States government.

I think the intelligence of a president's advisors may be more important, but is also more difficult to determine.

[pbrower2a]

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BWWWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH!

This is hilarious.

Tell me Paulie, can you pick out the logical fallacies that you used in your rambling screed?

Logical fallacies? Human nature is full of contradictions. That's why the wise minds pay attention to great literature.  I have known enough people to catch onto the reality that most of what people think about humanity as a whole comes from the subtle experiences of early childhood. An infant or toddler who learns from his parents that adults are competent, warm, selfless, and trustworthy has a vastly-different view of the world than does an infant or toddler whose parents are incompetent, distant or unavailable, selfish, and unreliable.  It's part of the difference between Perry Smith (one of the criminal duo who killed the Clutter family in In Cold Blood) and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Children do not understand theology, politics, or economics -- but they do know whether they are important to their parents or whether they are secondary to other interests of the parents. That is the big one. I could go on for the volume of a book, but you wouldn't be interested.  

No, I don't think that President Obama is going to be re-elected with 60% of the vote and win 520 or so electoral votes; America is too polarized to allow a partisan landslide for anyone. But I was one of those who thought that Ronald Reagan was a poor President because he offended about every liberal sensibility, and I thought as many liberals did. Reality then had a very conservative bias. The new young voters were decidedly on the Right and would enhance the Reagan victory of 1980; they are now on the Left and will enhance (or protect the) Obama victory of 2008.


The GOP is decidedly to the right. But what does someone under 30 have to gain from the political Right? More promotion of fundamentalist Protestantism? More intrusion into personal life? Deflationary economics likely to make debt more of a burden while pay and opportunities shrink? Wars for profit likely to turn youth into cannon fodder? Tax shifts that favor the super-rich? Economic policies predicated upon a return to the same failure of the Dubya era?  

If you are familiar with the Lichtmann test, President Obama is now in a good position in which to win re-election. Much has to go catastrophically wrong for the President to lose.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/08/30/never-wrong-pundit-picks-obama-to-win-in-2012

It is possible for someone simply smart to defeat a brilliant incumbent. It is nearly impossible for a dolt to defeat a brilliant incumbent who doesn't have glaring weaknesses.  

[Oakvale]

There has never been a president with below-average intelligence; it's simply impossible to attain that position without exceptional social skills and above-average mental faculties.  If Reagan was truly so stupid, that speaks poorly for Carter, given the fact that Reagan was popularly considered to have completely flattened him in the debates...

Obviously my post was somewhat hyperbolic - I don't think Reagan was really stupid per se, just noticeably less intelligent than most other Presidents. He was in the early stages of dementia, so maybe it's not fair to judge him by the standard of other Presidents who weren't going slowly senile in office.

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Oh god Wormy, please don't lapse into writing like CADan...

[Insula Dei]

Reagan doesn't strike me as very stupid, just very evil.

[The Mikado]

Andrew Johnson might not be our dumbest president, but was definitely our least educated (and between that and his heavy, heavy alcoholism, was not the most coherent leader this country has ever had).

[tpfkaw]

If you read any one of Andrew Johnson's speeches, which he wrote himself, unlike more recent dingbats, they are of a far higher reading level than anything Obama says.

[Oakvale]

If you read any one of Andrew Johnson's speeches, which he wrote himself, unlike more recent dingbats, they are of a far higher reading level than anything Obama says.

I have this insane theory that modern politicians may intentionally dumb down their rhetoric in order to appeal to the masses.