GET ME REWRITE: Why is this still a thing in the age of Trump?

FiveThirtyEight

As for that really likable guy, George W. Bush is 12th worst president ever according to a CBS ranking.  Elected president thanks to name recognition.  (Poor Jeb.  "Why couldn't I have been named George?")

We are indeed boogying our way doomsday.

Original 11/10/2019 post, "Sexism on parade: With Trump as president, pollsters and mainstream media keep yammering away on likability of women candidates", starts here.

Nonvoters Are a Source of Hope for Democrats. But Maybe a False Hope.  (The New York Times, 11/7/2019)

Related reading:
Men Invented ‘Likability.’ Guess Who Benefits.   (The New York Times, 5/4/2019)

But no female candidate has yet led the polls. The men keep joining — Michael Bennet this week, Joe Biden the last — and keep garnering glowing press coverage. Although Mr. Biden fumbled two previous presidential bids, we are told he has “crossover appeal”; Bernie Sanders has been admired by this newspaper as “immune to intimidation”; and Pete Buttigieg, who would be the first openly gay man nominated for president, is “very authentic.” By contrast Ms. Harris is “hard to define”; Ms. Klobuchar is “mean”; and Ms. Warren is a “wonky professor” who — you guessed it — is “not likable enough.” Seeing comments like this, Mrs. Clinton said wryly in January, “really takes me back.”

The Sexism of 'Likeability".  (Ms., 7/31/2019)

Are women “likable?” According to the polls, voters don’t think so, even though former advisors to Elizabeth Warren are doing their best convince us that she is “warm and affectionate.” But the real question is why “grabbing a beer” with a candidate is still the yardstick used to measure their potential—and why female candidates are (still) unfairly suffering from it.

Why women 2020 candidates face 'likability' question even as they make history.  (The Guardian, 2/4/2019)

As a record number of Democratic women seek America’s highest office – and look to limit Donald Trump’s presidency to a single term – familiar patterns have emerged in the narratives that surround them. But so, too, has a backlash to the old tropes, bolstered by the election of a record number of women in the 2018 midterm elections. 

“I think in 2016, the idea that ‘likable’ was gendered wouldn’t have even come up. In 2019, people clearly recognized it and called it out,” said Jess McIntosh, who served as a communications aide to Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the last election cycle.