Forget about Fundraising

I remember my grandmother singing an old suffragette song in which the woman demands her right to vote so she can "vote for the handsomest man!"

"Despite the age-old admonition not to 'judge a book by its cover,' we routinely make important judgments about human traits based on instant, superficial impressions of peoples' faces. Such 'blink of an eye' decision-making predicted the outcome of about 70 percent of recent U.S. Senate races, according to a new study in Science this week.

According to the study, candidates who looked 'competent' prevailed in congressional elections more than two-thirds of the time. In a review of the study, Dr. Leslie Zebrowitz, a psychologist at Brandeis University, and Joann M. Montepare, explain that the outcomes of the political races were likely due to differences in the opponents' 'babyfacedness.'"