Presidential candidates win and lose through the personas they project. Sometimes those personas are carefully crafted and cultivated. Other times the associations drawn are unintentional. Here are the five personas (and some fortunate and unfortunate associations) I am "reading" from the candidates. 

1. The rumpled revolutionary

Bernie Sanders is without doubt the most disheveled candidate of the 2016 electoral season — which projects anti-politician (despite his many years in Congress) and "one of the people." Which, for me, conjures up  José Mujica, the president of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015, a leftist ex-guerilla who astonishingly won first a plurality, then a majority of the votes in 2009, and said in his first speech when he took office in 2010: "it is a mistake to think that power comes from above, when it comes from within the hearts of the masses...." 

2. The power couple

Hillary Clinton is the candidate, but she comes to her candidacy with an ex-president in tow. Hillary and Bill are the American political power couple extraordinaire, and they remind me of another political power couple from the Americas — Juan and Eva Perón. The Peróns were beloved and reviled with the same vigor as the Clintons are, and Eva was the crux of much of the love and the hatred. While Juan was president, Eva ran the ministries of Labor and Health, championed women's rights and ran an eponymous charitable foundation. Labor was solidly behind her, as were lower-income Argentines, and women. Eva died young, so it wasn't her but Isabel (Perón's third wife) who became president after him — but Eva is the half of the political power couple everyone remembers. And I'd pay to see Madonna play Hillary Clinton in a fantastical biopic along the lines of Evita....  

3. The JFK sorta wannabe

There is nothing about Marco Rubio that isn't polished and studied to be deployed to maximum effect. Young, charming, handsome, with a photogenic family ... Rubio may not have anything in common with JFK politically, but he sure does visually. 

4. Tricky Dick

And since we're talking visuals ... anybody notice how much Ted Cruz resembles Richard Nixon? I sincerely doubt the Texas senator wants to elicit that association, but along with the accusations from his GOP rivals that he's all about dirty tricks, and the way those who disagree with him call him a d*ck, I now find myself thinking of that disrespectful Nixon nickname. Only. All. The. Time.

5. And finally, Donald Trump...

Bad hair? Nasty? Wants to turn our nation into a horror show? Donald Trump is Pennywise the clown, one of Stephen King's most memorable monsters. 'Nuf said, right?

via GIPHY

Now, it is your turn. Who do the presidential candidates remind you of?