Two posts I read yesterday hammered home the importance of something I hate.

TELEVISION.

My inability to watch it occasionally places me at a disadvantage in evaluating politicians. The problem is that I'm too impatient to put up with people spouting their opinions. When people talk, I can't skim through and "scroll down" to get to the point and save time. And with the tube, there's no human interaction the way there is if the person is sitting there talking to you. I feel completely passive watching it, and if the person is trying to persuade me of something, that oncoming sense that I'm being conned or manipulated triggers that instinctive urge to resist that is unpleasant because I cannot shut off. Now, some people are more honest than others, and there are people who say what they think without trying to play tricks or resorting to demagoguery, but political types are usually engaged in partisan debates, which means they are advocates who slant and spin, spin and slant, always looking for new openings and new ways to sneak their point in. The prevaricate and they exaggerate, and I just don't find the process of listening to them entertaining.

What I hate even more than that is commercials. Pure noise pollution -- every bit as bad as hearing the young people's vehicles which go "THUMP-THUMP-TH-THUMP!" as the bass loudspeakers blast everything in a two block radius to kingdom come. (Unlike television, the phenomenon at least provides some emotional satisfaction, as a hearing specialist once explained to me precisely how these idiots are doing physical damage to their interior parts of their ear structure. Tiny fragments actually break off and are gone permanently, which means that about the same time their tattoos start getting blurry and ugly, they won't be able to hear the upper range of a violin. Knowing that they will be punished for their noise eases my irritation somewhat, although I know it is not nice to revel in people's future hearing disabilities.)

Anyway, once a commercial comes on, I'm out of there. Back to whatever commercial-free classic movie might be on, and if I've seen it or it looks dumb, then I've usually had it with the TV set.

But being ruled by these emotional reactions is not wise, and I need to suspend them at election time. Normally I do, but this time I just wasn't in full-blown election mode, and I failed to watch the candidates. Well, I did watch the Corzine-Christie fat insult video -- but all that did was to heighten my loathing of Corzine and increase my sympathy for Christie. As I said,

Like most people, New Jerseyans don't seem to take kindly to personal insults, and I think it proved to be an unforgivable error for Corzine to have ridiculed his opponent's personal appearance. (If I lived in NJ, I'd have voted for Christie for that reason alone.)

What I completely missed because of my TV-phobia was a chance to evaluate the television styles of the two candidates running for NY-23.

First, here's Ann Althouse, quoting one of her commenters:

We have been inundated with TV commercials here. On TV, Hoffman comes across as exceedingly weird, skinny and overeager with googly eyes, bright yellow teeth, and an odd, halting way of speaking.

He kept repeating a slogan that he was a common-sense Reagan conservative and common sense isn't so common any more. It got annoying.

Owens, by contrast, is big and rugged-looking. He's an Air Force veteran and he has that military solidity, calm and self-possession.

He seems like a country guy, and this is a rural district. He presented himself as a centrist. On the human level, Owens is the kind of person voters around here feel comfortable with. Hoffman's not. Neither was Scozzafava.

What is he like?

That is not something to be found on a platform at a web site. The guy in question -- Doug Hoffman -- said he was like Reagan. But -- and this is a very important but --

What was Reagan like?

He was more than his platform. The man was so affable and charming that his worst enemies were disarmed, and he was one of the most personally likable politicians this country has ever known. Not only that, his long background as a Hollywood and television star gave him such command over the media that all he needed to do to turn the tables on his opponents was to manage to get in front of a camera. This is no exaggeration; I saw it at press conferences. He could get the press to laugh at each other even when the questions were considered serious and damning.

I hope I will be forgiven for this digression, but I remembered and found a link to one such instance -- in which Reagan had been supposedly "cornered" by the Grand Dame of the White House Press Corps, Sarah McClendon. (A woman so respected as a left-wing feminist icon that she got away with being "an ardent supporter of the Confederate Memorial Association and continue[d] to serve on its board.")

Like the testosteronized female pit bull McClendon was, she really had him by the balls -- or so everyone thought at the time. But that damnably affable Reagan turned the tables on her, first by a self-deprecating comment about his own age, and then saying that if the obsessive questioning continued, the press conference would have to be given an R rating:

Sarah [Sarah McClendon, McClendon News Service]?

Legal Equity for Women

Q. Sir, you have a report before you that was given to you from the Justice Department. It shows the discriminations that actually exist on the books in Federal agencies and departments against women. Now, you're committed to take care of legal equity for women, and this report has not been made public. Would you please let us see it, and will you do something about it?

The President. It hasn't reached me yet.

Q. Yes, sir, it did. It came to you in the Cabinet meeting, and you admitted at your last press conference that you had it. And I have checked this out thoroughly -- [laughter] -- yes, sir. It came from Assistant Secretary --

The President. Don't tell me I'm losing my memory. [Laughter] Well, Sarah, let me tell you this. First of all, I don't know of any administration that in the first 16 months that it was here placed as many women -- certainly not the last administration --

Q. Sir, that's fine, that's fine.

The President. -- in high positions, a great number of them requiring confirmation. And that is continuing along that line, and that has a task force now -- in the Justice Department there is a task force that is working on this very question.

Q. You've got it; you've got part of it; you've got the first quarter of it. It was given to you at the Cabinet meeting by Brad Reynolds [William Bradford Reynolds, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice] and it says that there's been a lot of sex--harassment of women-- [laughter] .

The President. Harassment? [Laughter]

Q. Sir, I suggest you look into that. He talked about it at the Cabinet meeting. He was there.

The President. Now, Sarah, just a minute here with the discussion, or we'll be getting an R rating. [Laughter]

I only wish I had the video. And I say that as someone who hates television. Reagan never disappointed people who saw the medium as a form of entertainment -- not even if they hated his politics (which I did -- and on culture war issues, still do).

I realize that expecting ordinary politicians to have Ronald Reagan's media skills is unreasonable, whether the politician is Doug Hoffman or anyone else. But here's the problem with Doug Hoffman.

Seen on television, this man who says he's like Reagan is as un-Reaganlike as it's possible to get.

Seriously, when forced myself to watch him -- for the first time yesterday, when it was too late -- I was horrified.

So was Oregon Guy, whose discussion of the following video raises some very unpleasant issues, including the possibility of Asperger's Syndrome.

There he sits, uncomfortably sandwiched between the Thompsons, almost as if they're hoping to hide him in plain sight. The guy has so little charm that in comparison to Reagan he's like a lobotomy patient who can only recite from a script. Might Hoffman's personality have factored into the original decision not to select him as a candidate?

Anyway, I found myself wincing in embarrassment. I don't even want to watch a video of his opponent. That Hoffman did as well as he did despite his appallingly bad television personality truly shows that the level of wrath that so many people have towards incumbents is so high they'll overlook almost anything.

This is all easy for me to say now that the election is over and Hoffman has lost. Had I made these observations last week, I might have been seen as a biased, foot-dragging naysayer, as someone who refuses to "get with the program."

(Probably another reason I can't stand the TV. All those people, all trying to make me "get with the program." Whatever the program is....)