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January 6, 2012

Your Turn: Romney Redux and the (Endlessly Flogged) Likeability Factor

By Michael Shaw

I’m interested in your deconstruct (or re-construct) the new TIME cover in light of its earlier cousin. I’m curious about the anchor text, especially the tone of the language on the new, post-Iowa cover. I’m also interested in the half-expressions and how they read differently given Romney’s angle, the ratio of space they are given on the cover and the fact that different sides of the face can communicate and suggest different things. And then, what’s with the difference in contrast?

Finally, to make things more interesting, I reversed the chronology to put Romney together. Among other things, it might help you think about how he’s split in the first place (and what that implies, considering the Iowa cover has him “coming out backwards”).

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  • Anonymous

    Hard to see how this works for Gov Romney given his proclivity for having two nearly-opposite positions on policy matters. The two heads can easily be read as two faced. Good example set by Time getting two covers out of the same photo. Austerity comes to the newsstand.

  • http://profiles.google.com/fatunga robert e

    Nice catch!

    I may be bad at reading faces, and covers, but I think the earlier Romney actually looks more approachable, and both figuratively and literally lighter, closer and more present. The later Romney seems perhaps a little smug, less knowable, literally more distant (by a smidge). Perhaps I’m projecting a “vulnerable/frustrated candidate vs well-funded and anointed terminator” thing onto more or less neutral expressions and layouts. More likely, though, I’m simply reading TIME’s take.

    • Karen H.

      A good moment to check out our Tumblr site (if you haven’t already). What do you think of the Romney description under the McCain/Romney pic?

      Grampa Fussinbudget & the Spaniel

  • bks

    I guess they still don’t like Romney:

    Some of the nation’s leading religious conservative leaders are
    gathering this weekend in Texas in an effort to consolidate a fractured GOP
    electorate around a single presidential candidate who best expresses
    their views. “One thing unites all in this group – Romney is not their
    guy,” said one of the participants, who spoke on the condition of
    anonymity.

    http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/01/influential-christian-leaders.html

        –bks

  • Glenn

    Janus

  • http://profiles.google.com/ac.missias AC Missias

    Wow, that’s really strange.  There’s so little going on in the world, nation, that they must use two halves of the same photo for two issues?  Maybe their plan when they did the first (given the presumption that Mitt would outpace his various competitors), but still very odd. 

    The shot that they used second looks more natural to me — at least, you can’t tell that the smile is forced, as it so clearly is in the first half; perhaps that’s supposed to jibe with his greater apparent popularity (matching the headlines)?  Something about the first shot almost doesn’t look like him.  hmmm…

  • http://profiles.google.com/fatunga robert e

    Well, if you’re referring to the likening of Romney to a begging spaniel, I find myself wishing I didn’t like it or agree with it, in part because it provokes some extremely cynical beliefs about presidential politics, specifically the belief that the presidency is, among other things, the most coveted sports trophy among the prep school boys set. But the epigram is both apt and funny.

    In this context, however, I find it more interesting that here’s yet another optically unclear/incomplete portrait of the anointed one. And since you (and the press) got my cynic up, I’m now almost ready to believe that Perry was recruited into the race to prove that a suit really can be more empty than Romney’s. Indeed, Romney himself could not have orchestrated a primary field better suited (sorry!) to making him appear serious and safe to mainstream Republican-leaning voters than this year’s preposterously unserious lineup.

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