Character or Charisma?

I started thinking about the power of charisma back in the Sixties, when JFK was running for President. (Sidenote: I wanted to write about it for my master's paper, but my advisor set me onto Puerto Rican juvenile delinquents instead. Ah well, my career in journalism was doomed from the start it seems.)

Anyway: Charisma. It rises again today in the person of Barack Obama, who seems able to get women hopping just as JFK did. Young folk, the kind we hope embody the future of our nation and the world, seem entranced by Obama. In my estimation, it's pure charisma.

Who else had it? Franklin D. Roosevelt had it, with his patrician airs and that jaunty cigarette holder and his winning grin. Harry Truman? No, he didn't have it, but he was a good President without it. He just needed to do the right thing and take the blame if he did or didn't. Eisenhower had it, but not because he was homely and bald; he had it because he'd been a hero, a general who led our armies to victory in WW2. Then JFK followed him, and the dream of Camelot, that a great leader could be handsome and intelligent and honorable. After him, LBJ (another politician thrust into office); he didn't have charisma, what he did have was power and the tools to wield it. Then Nixon. Poor Nixon. He knew he didn't have charisma, and people hated him for the lack, and that twisted him, so everything he did was to get even with those who had it. Then, skipping over Gerald Ford, we got Jimmy Carter. He had a homespun, aw shucks air about him that might have passed for charisma in some places, but not enough. Ronald Reagan had it and knew how to use it to convince people of his principles. Even his enemies liked him. Bill Clinton had/has it, and there's the problem for Hillary, where their calculations went awry. She doesn't seem to have it. Barack does.

Should we elect leaders on the basis of who has It and who does not? I'd say no, but history insists that some of our worst Presidents have been those without grace, which is another word for charisma.

But my biggest concern is about the uses to which personal charisma is put. We have to know as we vote that the individual character behind the charisma is strong enough to deflect the inevitable corruptions of power--the temptation to weasel and use the power in the service of something that, once clear thought is established, is not honorable enough to justify it. Like if you have a blackbelt in kung fu and use it to beat up the coach of the opposing team in your kid's soccer league.