Awkward staged affect is not a liability for a politician, so long as it isn’t in all situations, all the time. In fact it is 100% leakproof preternatural poise that seems to do them in. That might be why the I-feel-pretty video killed John Edwards’ campaign.
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A little bit of stagy awkwardness in fact humanizes a candidate. It says “look, I’m not an actor, I’m not used to this.”
It’s like anti-sprezzatura. Where sprezzatura hides obsessive presentation effort beneath a studied careless touch, anti-sprezzatura signals authenticity.
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It’s not the same thing as a mask-slip. It’s a moment of revealing inexpertness in mask performance.
This only matters for traditional candidates. Different rules seem to apply to candidates who offer missionary charisma to some group (Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Trump)
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Role occupiers versus role redefiners I suppose. We seem to alternate the two kinds these days.
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