Total Clips: 7 Headline Date Outlet Magic's Adonal Foyle eager to cast vote 01/27/2008 Orlando Sentinel Study-abroad programs cost more; CNY colleges count their euros 01/28/2008 Post-Standard A discovery in a NYC taxi begins an improbable digital-age mystery 01/28/2008 Associated Press (AP) - Boston Bureau CAP to prepare low-income workers' tax returns 01/29/2008 Oneida Daily Dispatch London Taxis Top New York, Tokyo With Superior Service, Prices 01/30/2008 Bloomberg News Targeting The Lost Year 01/31/2008 Inside Higher Ed Marketing the Next President of the United States 02/01/2008 LiveScience.com Magic's Adonal Foyle eager to cast vote 01/27/2008 Orlando Sentinel Bianchi, Mike Return to Top If you don't plan on voting Tuesday in the Florida primary, maybe you need to have a little talk with Orlando Magic backup center Adonal Foyle. Just listen to him for a few minutes. Let him tell you what voting for the first time means to him. Watch how emotional he gets. How animated. 'Am I excited? Oh my God, I've never voted in my 32 years of existence,' Foyle says, his voice rising an octave or two and sounding nearly as fervent as Mike Huckabee discussing the disbandment of the IRS. 'What an incredible time it is politically to be able to cast my ballot for the first time.' If the rest of us had the political passion of Adonal Foyle, our country would be in much better shape right now. It is both refreshing and distressing that somebody who wasn't born here is more interested in the future of our country than 99 percent of the people who have lived in America their entire lives. Foyle shatters every stereotype of the shallow, self-centered NBA millionaire. Even though he has made a lot of money in pro sports, he remains bewildered by the excessive lifestyle. And why not? He grew up in Canouan, a dot of an island in the southern reaches of the Caribbean. His childhood home had no electricity or running water. He used to do his homework by kerosene lantern. And, man, does he get a laugh out of hearing other NBA players talk about their stable of luxury cars. Foyle's mode of transportation as a kid? A family donkey named Country. 'Country was a beautiful donkey,' Foyle says, a nostalgic smile splashed across his face. 'She did everything. When you grow up with Country, why do you need six cars?' He came to America when he was 15 but didn't become a naturalized citizen until nine months ago when he and about a thousand others took the oath in San Francisco. He often thinks about some of the people in the auditorium that day; people who escaped genocide, abuse, hunger. He was taken aback by how many people broke down and cried when they finally became American citizens. 'This country is still the land of opportunity for so many people around the world,' Foyle says. He's always been interested in the political process, but he became engrossed in politics as a student at Colgate University. A few years ago, he founded an organization called 'Democracy Matters' -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization to get college students and other young people involved in the electoral process. The main platform of Democracy Matters is campaign finance reform. Why campaign finance? It bothers Foyle that the No. 1 issue for legitimate presidential candidates isn't how to stop the war or how to remedy the worldwide oil crisis. He shakes his head. 'The first issue,' he says, 'is always how much money can the candidate raise? If you want to restore hope and trust in government, you have to take the big-money influence out of the equation. There is so much corporate and private money given to the candidates that their policies are directed first and foremost to helping the people who finance their success instead of their constituencies at large.' Isn't it wonderful to hear an NBA player talk about campaign finance, the economy, free trade? Let's face it, most NBA players think foreign policy is the life insurance Yao Ming purchased back in China. Homeland security? Isn't that the guy who opens and closes the guard gate at Isleworth? Foyle is one NBA player whose horizons are much wider than the free-throw lane and stretch far beyond the 3-point line. It's profoundly moving listening to a man who grew up without electricity call our country a 'beacon of light for people around the world.' It's pretty special when a kid who grew up riding a donkey named Country is now doing his part to save the world. Ol' Country died long ago, but now Adonal Foyle has a new country -- the United States of America. And you should hear him talk about it. Immerse himself in it. Bask in its liberty and glory. More than anything, he wants his new country to be the best country it can possibly be. Study-abroad programs cost more; CNY colleges count their euros 01/28/2008 Post-Standard James, Rebecca Return to Top Colgate University junior Jeremy Bennett, now studying in one of the world's most expensive cities, knows that dining at pubs or even picking up fish and chips could break his budget. Before he left to study in London for the spring semester, the Fayetteville-Manlius graduate said he planned to make his own meals in the flat he shares with four other Colgate students. 'I'll be doing a lot of pasta and rice dishes,' he said. 'Especially the way the dollar is and having a student's budget, I just have to make some smart decisions.' The hundreds of Central New York college students hitting Europe this spring must come up with extra cash because the dollar has declined against the pound and the euro. The euro, the currency of most of Europe, started out 2007 worth $1.32 and jumped to $1.47 at the start of 2008. For a student paying $10,000 in expenses in euros, that's an extra $1,500. The dollar hit a 26-year low against the pound in November and has since improved slightly. 'When a cup of coffee costs three euros now, it gets pretty tough,' said John Wells, director of off-campus study at Wells College. (That's $4.41 for that college student staple.) Colleges in Central New York are sending more than 1,700 students abroad this spring, the most popular time to study in foreign countries. Most schools, many of which have seen explosive growth in study abroad programs, do not think the higher cost has turned students away. But programs that are shorter than a full semester, and therefore are also cheaper, have driven the growth in many programs. That's the case at SUNY Oswego, where the number of students going abroad tripled in five years. Schools with large programs, including Syracuse University, help their students by hedging currency, entering contracts that lock in exchange rates. Schools also swallow added costs in some areas, like foreign tuition, without passing them onto students. 'Since Colgate prepares our study abroad program budgets mainly in the local currency a year in advance, we know we run some financial risk,' said Barbara Gorka, director of off-campus study. Students do have to cover added costs for room and board, which will be $300 to $1,000 more than original estimates for spring programs in western Europe and Australia, Gorka said. Some colleges expect a greater impact next year. Wells expects some programs to cost 15 to 20 percent more. Students with plans to study abroad said they have been saving as much as they can for years while constantly checking currency fluctuations. "We would have hoped it got a little better by the time we left," said Kate van den Heever. "I've been saving for two years. Now that we know what the dollar is worth, we're all worried if the money is going to last." She and her twin sister Paige, both Liverpool High School graduates, are Colgate juniors studying in Wales this semester. They had hoped to visit friends studying in Germany, but aren't sure that will happen. SU advises students to reconsider extra travel even if they may not be back in Europe anytime soon. "It's very tempting when you are in London to say, let's hop over to Italy," said Daeya Malboeuf, associate director of Syracuse University Abroad. "It gets expensive quickly and it also takes away from immersing yourself in the culture that you went to see." College and government leaders stress that students are best prepared to work in a global society by learning languages and studying abroad, but the higher costs coupled with more complicated requirements for visas make that hard, said German Zarate, associate professor of economics at SUNY Cortland. There are some scholarships for study abroad programs and many colleges allow financial aid to be applied to the programs. Cornell students who choose pricey programs, such as the London School of Economics, can qualify for additional financial aid. Some of Cornell's programs in London cost more than $30,000 for a semester. But choose a different program and the price is dramatically different. Argentina, including airfare, is $18,450. At Wells College, students pay a surcharge to their regular tuition rates for more expensive programs, but when programs are cheaper, Wells covers airfare, room and board. Even expensive cities are cheaper on shorter stays. SUNY Oswego's summer in Rome program costs in-state students $5,500 in 2007. It lasts one month and offers six credits. While educators feared students would stay home after Sept. 11, 2001, study abroad growth has continued, increasing 150 percent between 1995-96 and 2005-06, according to the Institute of International Education. But while all programs involve earning some credit, more than half are for less than a semester. "Although two weeks in Mexico is better than none, the educational value is not the same as a full semester of study," Zarate said. Bennett, the Manlius native and history major, has plenty to do for his semester-long program. He is perusing the British National Archives and plans to write a 40-page paper on the British involvement in the Russian civil war. "It's a really great opportunity," he said. "I knew since freshman year, the London program just made sense." A discovery in a NYC taxi begins an improbable digital-age mystery 01/28/2008 Associated Press (AP) - Boston Bureau Bergstein, Brian Return to Top (Note: Erika Gunderson and Brian Ascher are members of Colgate's class of 2003) At dusk on New Year's Eve, Erika Gunderson got into a taxi in New York City and entered a digital-age mystery. Sitting on the back seat was a nice Canon digital camera. Gunderson asked the driver which previous passenger might have left it, but the cabbie didn't seem to care. So Gunderson brought it home and showed it to her fiance, Brian Ascher. They decided that the only right thing to do was to find the owner. But how? The only clues were the pictures on the camera: typical tourist snapshots, complete with a visit to the Statue of Liberty. How could they find a stranger among the huddled masses? Gunderson is busy in finance for Bear Stearns Cos., so the detective quest fell to Ascher, a 26-year-old law student at New York University. He was on winter break and eager to put off writing a paper about climate change treaties. He checked whether anyone had reported a matching missing camera to the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission. No dice. He placed ads in lost-and-found sections of Craigslist but got just one response — from a couple in Brazil who had lost a camera in a cab on Oct. 12, not Dec. 31. "I guess they thought their camera had been riding around in a taxi for two months," Ascher recalls now, chuckling at the notion that such a thing would be possible in New York. The 350 pictures and two videos on the camera showed several adults, an older woman and three children. Half put them at New York sites like the Empire State Building. The other half had the group enjoying warm weather and frolicking at kid-friendly theme parks. Ascher easily pinpointed Florida. The group had stood in front of a sign indicating Clearwater, Fla., and posed at Bob Heilman's Beachcomber Restaurant there. They also took a pirate-themed boat ride where the kids got mustaches painted on their faces. Ascher zoomed in on the group to see name tags on their shirts. He spotted an Alan, an Eileen, a male Noel and a female Noelle, plus a Ciarnan. Under their names was written "IRE." When Ascher checked the videos, he saw nothing telling, just the children dancing and swimming. But in the background, he heard Irish accents. OK, Ascher figured, the camera's owner is from Ireland. Ascher called Canon's Ireland division to see if anyone had registered the $500 camera's serial number. No such luck. He posted ads on Irish Web sites. Nothing. He checked the date stamp on the photos from Bob Heilman's and called to inquire whether anyone remembered serving a big Irish group that day. Without the diners' last names, there was no way to check. It's a nice thing you're trying, the manager told Ascher, but you probably just found yourself a new camera. Enter some fresh eyes. Ascher's mother, Nancy, and sister, Emily Rann, scoured the pictures for clues he might have missed. Nancy was particularly confident, having reunited people with their lost belongings before. She once found a California woman's wallet in a cab in Florence, Italy, and spent all day on her trail before making a handover at an American Express office. "I thought, with all this data in the camera, there's no way we're not going to get it back to them," Nancy Ascher says now. "I was hoping it wasn't going to take a trip to Ireland, flashing their pictures everywhere." Ascher's mother and his sister noticed that one of the pictures showed a doorman helping someone into a New York taxi. Zooming tight on the doorman's uniform, they made out the logo of the Radisson Hotel. After several phone calls and a visit to the hotel to show the pictures around, Nancy Ascher persuaded an employee to search the Radisson's guest records by first name and country of residence. Indeed, a Noel from Ireland had stayed there on the date stamped on the photo. Nancy Ascher charmed the hotel employee into sharing the guest's e-mail address. Wonderful. Except that when Noel responded to Brian Ascher, he said he hadn't lost a camera. By now, school was resuming, and Ascher was prepared to give the camera to his mom so she could take over. She had figured out the name of the Florida pirate-boat cruise and was trying to reach its operator. But first Ascher took a final look at the photographs. He pored over some from Dec. 30 that didn't include the children. The photos showed signs for bars in Manhattan's East Village: The Thirsty Scholar, Telephone Bar, Burp Castle. There also were multiple interior shots of a tavern, but they didn't seem to fit with what Ascher knew of those other three bars. Then he stopped on another picture, showing two people outside an apartment building. Seemingly accidentally included in the picture was something Ascher had missed the first time: an awning in the background that read "Standings." Aha! Standings is a bar next to Burp Castle. Ascher checked its Web site, and the interior matched the pictures on the camera. Ascher found Standings' owner, who reached the bartender who had worked Dec. 30. Yes, he recalled an Irish group. Especially because one of the women was a big tipper and said she worked at another New York City bar, Playwrights. The Standings bartender called Playwrights to ask which employees had been in his bar. Ascher soon got an e-mail from a woman named Sarah Casey, whose sister Jeanette works at Playwrights. Suddenly everything Ascher had seen on the camera came to life. The Caseys recently had hosted relatives and friends from Ireland. The group included their friend Alan Murphy, who had journeyed to Florida with family before heading to New York, where the clan stayed at the Radisson. (Their Noel was not the Noel whom Ascher e-mailed.) Murphy ended the trip kicking himself for leaving his camera in a cab in the twilight on New Year's Eve. Sarah Casey agreed to send it to him. It didn't go to Ireland but to Sydney, Australia, where Murphy lives now. Murphy, an insurance underwriter, had been devastated to lose the pictures from a trip he had planned for years. It was Jan. 10 — his 34th birthday — when he heard he would be getting the photos back. "I was over the moon," he says now. "Best present ever." "I owe you one," he wrote to Ascher. "It's good to know there are some honest people left in the world." CAP to prepare low-income workers' tax returns 01/29/2008 Oneida Daily Dispatch McDonald, Leah Return to Top MORRISVILLE - Filing for taxes just got a little easier. Community Action Partnership of Madison County has begun holding its Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, at several locations throughout the county. "For low income or people without a steady job, it's helpful because they don't have to pay for it," said Madison resident Cindy Petrie, who took advantage of the program on opening day Saturday along with Vance Tallman, also of Madison. "And the students are all pleasant." Volunteers from Colgate University spend their time helping residents who are eligible for the Earned Income Tax credit fill out forms and file their taxes, a task second-year molecular biology major Chris Sauter said was easier said than done. "There's a lot of rules that involve taxes I had no idea existed," said the 19-year-old. He and other students spent the day helping Madison County residents, saving some of them, like Tallman, $200-$400 they would otherwise have spent at a professional accountant. Any resident eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit is eligible for the VITA program, which will be held through April 15 at the CAP offices in Morrisville, as well as the Department of Social Services in Wampsville and the Hamilton Library. Hours are Monday through Thursday and Saturdays, depending on location, by appointment only. Evening and daytime hours are available. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call CAP at 684-3144 or 1-800-721-2271. London Taxis Top New York, Tokyo With Superior Service, Prices 01/30/2008 Bloomberg News Return to Top London Taxis Top New York, Tokyo With Superior Service, Prices By Tracy Alloway, Greg Bensinger and Makiko Kitamura Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- London cabbie Lee Rogers weaves through a dozen back streets to reach King's Cross Station in the heart of the city. ``It doesn't take much to snarl the roads up,'' said Rogers, 38, who took 4 1/2 years to qualify for driving one of London's iconic black cabs. ``That's when the `Knowledge,' ducking and diving along the back roads, kicks in.'' The ``Knowledge,'' or required familiarity with the city's streets, helps makes London's taxi service better than those in other major financial centers, according to business travelers interviewed by Bloomberg. Superiority comes at a price, as London fares are about double those of New York and Tokyo. Cab services enable executives to make business meetings, theatergoers to travel home at night and shoppers to transport purchases. They also are key to forming a visitor's image of a city, said Graham Hodges, a former cabbie and author of the book ``Taxi! A Social History of the New York City Cabdriver.'' ``Cab rides to and from airports, offices and all around town leave a lasting impression,'' said Hodges, now a professor of history at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Charging about 9 pounds ($17.9) for a 2-mile trip, London's cabbies drive vehicles that cost 35,000 pounds -- and do come in colors other than black. ``They're polite, their vehicles are good, they know their way about,'' said Howard Wheeldon, an analyst at BGC Partners, a London brokerage. ``The trouble is, they're far too expensive.'' In Bloomberg comparisons, London's cabs, now built only by U.K.-based Manganese Bronze Holdings Plc in Shanghai, China, and Coventry, England, came out on top for backseat legroom, passenger capacity, driver knowledge, safety and fuel-efficiency. New York, which like London has a smoke-free fleet, bettered the two other cities in terms of having the cheapest fares and providing the most rides per week. Tokyo has more cabs for each 1,000 residents and the most credit-card swipes. In September and October, New York cab drivers staged three days of strikes to protest a city order to install card readers and satellite navigation systems. Taxis were still available using a flat-rate zone-fare system instead of the normal meter fares based on time and distance. Though finishing behind London in the comparison table, cabbies in Tokyo and New York do have their own fans. In New York, ``I've been able to speak Hindi with one driver and Cantonese with another,'' said Rajesh Varma, who helps manage 10 billion euros ($14.7 billion) at Carmignac Gestion in Paris. ``It's probably the only city where I can get a free ride because I speak the language.'' In Tokyo, white-gloved drivers usher passengers to and from their vehicles with umbrellas when it rains. Many use white covers on seats and headrests. ``The most polite drivers are in Tokyo,'' said Ed Rogers, head of Tokyo-based Rogers Investment Advisors, who has lived in Japan for a decade. Some Tokyo cabbies don't display the reserved demeanor that foreigners may expect. One is known to welcome clients with hot hand towels and offer them candies. And, if the passenger wishes, the driver pulls over to play folk music on a bamboo flute. Others lack familiarity with Tokyo's streets, Rogers said. With Japan's rural economy weak, ``you're getting more and more people from the countryside, so they may not know the city very well,'' he said. In London, where most cabbies are locals, drivers study an average of 40 months to attain the level of proficiency required for a license. That sets them apart from cabbies in other cities, said Bob Oddy, a driver for 25 years who is now general secretary of the 8,000-member Licensed Taxi Drivers Association. Candidates prepare for a written test and a series of interviews with current and retired drivers by memorizing 320 routes covering 37,000 streets. ``In London, it is a profession,'' Oddy said. ``In many other countries, it's seen as something you do while looking for a better job.'' In Tokyo, cabbies must pass a one-hour geography examination. In New York, they are tested on their English comprehension and ability to find addresses on a map of the city's five boroughs. Once qualified, London cabbies earn more and work less. They report taking home 30,000 to 55,000 pounds a year. A survey published in 2004 showed their average workweek was a little less than 40 hours. Most own their cabs. Tokyo taxi drivers earned an average of 3.28 million yen ($30,780) in 2006, according to the country's Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. They work as long as 21 hours every other day, for a monthly maximum of 299 hours. In New York, most cab drivers pay a daily fee of $100 to $130 to taxi fleet owners for the right to use the vehicle and its license. Including gasoline, weekly expenses are about $1,000 for six 12-hour shifts. ``Drivers have to work incredibly hard just to earn their first dollar each day,'' Hodges said. Taking in about $300 in fares and tips on a typical day, according to Hodges, their annual income would be about $40,000. Targeting The Lost Year 01/31/2008 Inside Higher Ed Powers, Elia Return to Top On the whole, students in that category perform worse in the classroom and are less involved in co-curricular activities than their on-campus sophomore counterparts are, according to Susan Mosley-Howard, associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students. Miamis soon-to-be-implemented two-year residential policy is part of an initiative to keep students engaged in ways that administrators hope first-year students are, through orientation, meetings and residence hall programming. In higher education we put lots of emphasis on the first-year programs, but all of the sudden the second year comes and its easy for students to get lost in the mix, Mosley-Howard said. Were going to be much more intentional about what we want students to learn over their first two years. Colleges across the country are looking at whats often called the lost year and developing programs intended to help with academic and social transitions. Roughly a third of institutions that responded to a survey from the University of South Carolinas National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students In Transition indicated having initiatives specifically designed for sophomores. (A list compiled by the center is available here.) Thirty-seven percent of respondents said their colleges were in the midst of planning a program. Not surprisingly, smaller private institutions were more likely to plan a sophomore class event than were large public colleges. Survey results revealed that academic advising (most often help with selecting a major) and career guidance were two of the most common facets of these programs. Barbara F. Tobolowsky, associate director of the South Carolina center, said many colleges had the services available to students before starting these second-year initiatives, but wanted a better way to package the offerings to sophomores. College officials say its also a way to help with retention efforts. Its unclear how fast the programs are spreading, given that the center hadnt surveyed colleges about their second-year initiatives until fall 2005. Tobolowsky said she wants to gather new data this fall, in part because the sample size for the first report was only 382 colleges (out of 1,139 targeted). Julie Stockenberg, director of first-year and sophomore studies and academic advising at Colorado College, said that while the second-year programs started mainly at liberal arts colleges, public universities and community colleges have taken notice. Those types of institutions were well represented, Stockenberg said, in a conference call she led this week for colleges that are mostly in the early stages of developing such programs. Initiatives that early on were largely based on residence hall seminars and co-curricular activities are also beginning to include academic components, she said. Sophomores at Colorado College can take a second-year-only elective course that covers multiculturalism and democracy. The 15 or so students in the yearlong course live together in a dorm hallway. Colorado Colleges Sophomore Jump program also includes once-a-month dinners with faculty members and events such as an international opportunities week that previously existed for the entire campus and that now have sessions tailored to second-year students in this case conversations about studying abroad junior year. Stockenbergs position, created five years ago, includes work as a supplementary adviser. She meets with well over 100 sophomores per year (on top of their assigned faculty adviser), and also develops first-year programming. Were looking at it like other colleges are as a first- and second-year initiative, she said. Sometimes we have a tendency to put too much in the first year, when the information may not be developmentally appropriate. Instead, were thinking about it as a two-year span. At Miami, students get an introduction to campus life during a program during their first year. The university is considering adding new seminars for returning students that focus on the responsibilities of living off campus, including knowledge of city ordinances and landlord-tenant contracts. Theyre hearing about living with people in the first year, but they havent yet had any experiences and learned to co-exist, she said. Now they get to say, Ive seen a lot, where do I stand on the issues? Miamis second-year dorm rule is a return to a past university policy one that has not always been popular with students. Judith A. Sessions, dean and university librarian, who spoke about the initiative at the Association of American Colleges and Universities annual meeting this month, said the second year on campus gives students more time to reflect on what it means to be a member of an academic community and have social obligations. Second-year students will be asked to develop a code of conduct for their residence halls and create, if decided on by dorm residents, a governance structure. Unless the rules run afoul of university policies, the students will have final say over the guidelines, Mosley-Howard said. It fits into the notion of entrusting students with responsibilities and learning what its like to be a citizen, she added. Students will also be asked to write reflections about their experiences with the program in an online journal. Molly Schaller, an associate professor in the department of counselor education and human services at the University of Dayton, who has written extensively on second-year students, said shes noticed plenty of campuses requiring a second year of campus residency, but most do so for financial reasons unlike Miami. Linking Academics and Careers At Dayton, academic departments and programs have attempted to keep sophomores engaged through their own programming. The criminal justice program, for instance, provides seminars and luncheons for students who have declared the major but who are still not taking many classes in the field. The strongest second-year transition programs make a clear link between academic and career advising, Schaller said. Its often a matter of taking whats already offered on campus and either re-packaging it for students or tailoring it to the second-year transition. Were getting to the point where institutions are articulating to students and faculty that its not just another year there are special programs for them, Schaller said. At Colgate University, the Sophomore Class Council partners with a dean to organize parts of the Sophomore-Year Experience, which includes alumni networking, community service events and study abroad seminars. Raj Bellani, Colgates associate dean of academic programs, who helps oversee the initiative along with the dean of the sophomore experience, said the phrase lost year is a misnomer and should really be called a year in transition. Colgates program includes an option for students to shadow alumni at their jobs and attend networking meals with faculty members. The university also offers sophomore-only residence halls. Bellani pointed out that nearly all of Colgates students live on campus as sophomores, which builds class community. The idea of the second-year initiative isnt new. One of the earliest such programs started at Beloit College in the early 1990s at the same time the institution shaped its first-year programming. The second-year program includes a major declaration fair, in which students can declare a major or minor and speak with professors about their choice, and a sophomore class retreat attended by roughly half the class. That retreat is planned for November, when students begin to hit the sophomore slump, said Joy de Leon, co-director of the program and assistant dean for academic advising at Beloit. Students are feeling the pressure, she said. Work piles on, and its a different kind of work. Elia Powers Comments are off for this item. Marketing the Next President of the United States 02/01/2008 LiveScience.com Bryner, Jeanna Return to Top Winning an election is all about selling your brand, say marketing researchers. And that brand better look good. A presidential hopeful's appearance can be crucial to election outcomes, researchers say. Whether sporting a slick, classic hairstyle or showing a commanding bit of gray, and whether the candidate looks scholarly or masculine, can all impact voter perceptions. Further, a candidate's party affiliation will affect which appearance traits draw the most voter support. "The reality is that these campaigns are run like marketing campaigns," said Michael Lewis, a marketing professor at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. "They're driven by focus groups, there's a lot of advertising, and people use marketing language, such as 'positioning.'" "I'd love to say that it was all about content and substance and the guys with the good ideas were going to rise to the top, and the candidates with poorer ideas are going to end up at the bottom," said Caroline Keating, a professor of psychology at Colgate University in New York. But, she said, "style does matter because it's the carrier of those important messages and without that vehicle the good ideas are not heard." The bottom line: John McCain may be benefiting from his gray hair. Mitt Romney should work on eye contact, Barack Obama is not hurt by his affable nature and Hillary Rodham Clinton is perhaps in the toughest spot of all. Jock or college professor? Lewis and his colleague JoAndrea Hoegg, a professor at the University of British Columbia, examined 112 congressional elections in 2000 and 2002. "Republicans tend to do better when they look like a high-school quarterback or a CEO — square jaw, cropped hair," Lewis said. "Democrats did better when they had the look of a college professor." Lewis cautions that appearance doesn't decide elections, however, and is just part of the political campaign pie. A past study found that voters preferred candidates who resembled themselves in appearance. "The candidate who most resembles you in a non-verbal sense, you're more likely to support that candidate, especially if you don't know much about the candidate's platform," said Shanto Iyengar, professor of political science and communications at Stanford University. His research has shown the appeal of candidates that resemble you is strongest for unfamiliar candidates. Lewis and Hoegg found that the look of the individual candidates seemed to transfer information about their personal characteristics. In the research, participants looked at pictures of pairs of opposing candidates in the congressional elections and indicated which candidate appeared more competent, more intelligent, more likable and more trustworthy. The researchers chose congressional, rather than presidential, elections so that participants would not come into the study with preconceived notions of each candidate. "The key was just that most congress people aren't well known, with a few exceptions," Lewis said, noting that they excluded any candidate for which a subject indicated a familiarity. They found that candidates who were labeled as more competent and more trustworthy were more often identified as Republican, while Democrats were more often linked with traits of likeability and intelligence. Hairy issue So how do the current presidential candidates stand up to the looks litmus test? Regarding appearance, perhaps the prettiest of them all is John Edwards, who just bowed out of the presidential nomination race. Was it the hair? "Hair was a big issue," Lewis said of his study results. "Republicans tended to have, let's say, better hair, Mitt Romney hair, where democrats tended not to have that classic haircut or hairstyle." Lewis went on to say, "We could make the case that John Edwards kind of looks more like a Republican, and so part of his disadvantage may have been that he didn't really fit what Democratic primary voters really are drawn to in terms of these appearance traits." He cautions, however, that appearance is not the end-all and be-all of political campaigns. "I don't want to overestimate the effects of the appearance variables," Lewis said. "If we just look at the way these candidates appear, you might predict that [Mitt] Romney would have an initial advantage," Lewis told LiveScience. But Romney, at least after the Florida primaries, is behind McCain. Although Lewis didn't study the impact of apparent age, he says, "Clearly, having some gray at the temples probably helps, gives some credibility." If McCain were to take the Republican bid and Obama the Democrat, Lewis said he would be interested to see how age figures in. "It's an interesting thing to see how that plays out, youth and vitality versus experience but also age creeping in," he said. A tip for Romney's image: eye contact, according to image consultant Evangelia Souris, founder and president of Optimum International Center for Image Management in Boston. "Mitt Romney has been criticized because he's really aloof," Souris said. "For him, what I would say is when he talks to people he needs to talk to them and not down to them. He very rarely establishes eye contact when he's one-on-one." When Souris works with political clients, even the subtlest detail can make a difference. "It could be anything from the bare essentials, the hairstyle, the clothes or the color of the suit, to the mannerisms they use when they're making a speech, their tone, their eye contact," she said. Negative ads Appearance isn't everything. Lewis and his colleague found that how much money was spent on advertising and the use of negative ads also affected election outcomes. "If you actually look at spending by candidates versus the appearance effect, spending effects are much greater," Lewis said. "Money talks much more than appearance. So appearance helps but it doesn't explain the whole story." Whereas the use of negative ads by candidates worked against incumbents, challengers tended to benefit from mudslinging. The researchers speculate the incumbent, or the iconic brand, is already well-known and so would do well to emphasize their established positive attributes. The challenger, however, is unfamiliar and has the job of changing consumers' views of the market leader—the opponent. In this respect, Clinton would be considered an incumbent. "Hillary has been the frontrunner for so long, we can almost think of her as having a lot of the advantages and problems that incumbents would have. She started out with massive awareness compared to Obama," Lewis said. Likeability deficit Clinton and Obama could be facing off on their level of likeability. "If you think about how the Democratic race has unfolded, I think likeability has turned into a major issue, where I think the common thinking is that Hillary Clinton kind of struggles in terms of making connections," Lewis said. "Whereas Barack Obama tends to be more fluid and much more likeable to folks." "So despite the enormous advantages that Hillary had coming into this, in terms of fundraising, in terms of awareness, this likeability deficit does explain probably how well Obama is doing, at least partially," Lewis said. Keating concurs, suggesting that gender stereotypes also come into play for Clinton. Voters are "desperately searching for warmth in the face and appearance of Hillary Clinton, because our stereotype of women is that they are warm and they care about people and they are approachable," Keating said. "Here we have this woman who takes center stage and acts like a leader, which really violates all the stereotypes we have for women." She added that Sen. Clinton is between a rock and a hard place. "How can she appear both competent and likeable at the same time when one or the other of those ways violates a stereotype?" Keating asks. "And that in a nutshell has been Hillary's problem." The image factor becomes a large part of the campaigning strategy. "They definitely all have somebody who is coaching them and advising them, whether it's how they carry their posture or their hand movements," image consultant Souris said. "[Image] does have a lot of play into how people connect with them. When you first meet someone it's all about first impression."