At the polls, is it character, intelligence or height that matters most? Here's one measure: In only four of the last 20 presidential elections has the shorter candidate won.
Take George H.W. Bush vs. Michael Dukakis 20 years ago. At 6-2, the Republican candidate towered over the 5-8 Democrat.
Johnny Carson (5-10 1/2) said Dukakis might become "the first president in history who will have to be lifted up to see his own inaugural parade." In a "Saturday Night Live" sketch, viewers heard what sounded like the gears of a mechanical lift as Jon Lovits, playing Dukakis, rose into the air so that he could see over his lectern.
In 2004, George W. Bush, 5-11, beat John Kerry, 6-4, and became the first person to win the presidency with as much as a 5-inch disadvantage since William McKinley, 5-7, beat William Jennings Bryan, 6-0, in 1900. At one time, Hillary Rodham Clinton, at 5-5, had a chance to become the shortest president since James Madison, 5-4.
Where do the current candidates stand? Barack Obama is 6-foot-1 and John McCain is 5-9.
Taller candidates seem to have dominated in the television era. Wikipedia has a list of the heights of most major-party candidates, starting with George Washington, 6-2. Its data should be cited with caution. But it suggests that, assuming the taller candidate wins this year, 71 percent of the presidential elections in the TV era will have been won by the taller candidate, compared with 58 percent in the elections before that, when voters rarely had a chance to see their contestants standing side by side.
WASHINGTON POST
