Education—
The modern man is intelligent, not brutish but brainy. The standards of masculinity still certainly include physical components (which the next slide will cover) but part of being manly is self-assuredness, which ideally comes from intelligence. In a perfect world, we could factor in emotional intelligence and common sense to balance out standardized testing scores, but that is beyond the scope of this post, regretfully. For the moment, I will resort to a quick and dirty comparison of each man’s educational background.
Romney began his undergraduate studies at Stanford but left after a year. He ultimately finished his undergrad degree requirements at Brigham Young University. Romney attended Harvard for his graduate degrees, enrolling in a joint degree program and earning his J.D. and M.B.A.
Obama started his undergrad career at Occidental College and then transferred to Columbia University. After a period working, he returned to school and earned his J.D. from Harvard. While his education ended there, he did not leave the profession, but taught for over a decade at the University of Chicago Law School.
Santorum attended Penn State for undergrad, the University of Pittsburgh for an M.B.A., and went back to Penn State for his J.D.
Points: 1 point awarded to each contestant. While Romney and Santorum both earned graduate business degrees, a career in education has to be respected as well.
The question of a president’s manliness reminds me of an episode of King of the Hill in which Hank Hill, who values traditional masculinity, gets to meet the man he plans to vote for, George W. Bush, at a rally. He has the opportunity to shake Bush’s hand, but is shocked and appalled to find that Bush has a weak, limp handshake. It leaves him so shaken, he doubts whether he can even vote for the man. For me, this is a non-issue. A presidential candidate’s masculinity is not something I consciously consider when deciding who to vote. I was… Read more »