@Juliebird

The question is, should charisma the deciding factor in picking a candidate?

I appreciate your post, and I think it's a good question, although it sort of presupposes that Obama supporters are in fact picking him for the charisma instead of other, more substantial issues.

For the record, and because substance is so often left out, these are a few of the issue-related reasons I like Obama over Hillary:

1. the Iraq war -it's been hashed out over and over, but it remains my biggest reason for voting for Obama. Hillary supporters like to diminish his prescience (Go find his actual anti-war speech--it's amazingly accurate in its forecasting of future uncertainty in an occupied Iraq) and point to his general acquiescence once reaching the Senate, but voting on Iraq once it was invaded is something different entirely, and I haven't even decided myself whether the troops should come home asap or what. People have also tried to undermine his political risk in giving that speech. I disagree. I remember those days with something like trembling fear. The stifling patriotism gave me anxiety and depression, and I felt trapped, watching everybody--celebrities, politicians, friends, newspaper reporters--couch their words, "watch what they say" (as Ari Fleischer told us to), muffle their concern over what America was doing or their questions about why. If Obama's speech wasn't the rousing, screaming, inflammatory anti-war rant that was going on in Europe at the time, it was because of this atmosphere. That he said what he said, while running for public office, is nothing short of amazing.

2. his common-sense stand on Cuba. Somewhere I read his position, which is to normalize Cuba and bring them into the fold, and Hillary disagreed, probably for that tiny percentage of Cuban-Americans in FL. How asinine US policy has been toward Cuba for the last 30 years, and how asinine to pretend that it hasn't been.

3. I am a teacher who thinks the system sucks, and that includes being full of bad apples. He has consistently suggested that teachers need to improve and we need to get the bad ones out (These are my words, LOL--he's a lot more eloquent, as you can imagine!). His words are not nearly as panaceic at teachers' union meetings as Hillary's. Also on education, I have heard him speak about the importance of critical thinking skills--bringing into the classroom some of the higher order skills like defending an argument, recognizing bias, discerning truth, etc. This is my pet issue.

4. I like his disavowal of lobbyists. I know he's not perfect here as has been pointed out by many, but I believe he is better than Hillary on this.

5. Charisma. (I'm skipping over other reasons, btw--this is not an all-inclusive list). This is the controversial factor--the thing everybody questions and likes to insult about. We Obamabots are swooning and fawning over an ephemeral candidate, blah, blah, blah.

Well, one would have to be foolish not to recognize the very specific advantages such charisma would have in realpolitik. This man sitting down with foreign leaders or opponents in Congress is formidable to contemplate. That he speaks well is not evidence of superficiality as some like to claim. They forget that Bill Clinton had this road to hoe, when his silver tongue was conflated with duplicity in 1992. Those of us who knew better understood that nuanced, soaring speech--off the cuff no less--is evidence of a fine mind, nothing more, nothing less.

So, to answer your question: charisma is one real reason that should be considered when voting, but just one. I suppose for many Democrats, the two candidates' policy positions are similar enough or balance each other out in some way, as to leave charisma as the only remaining factor. For those, charisma may rule the day.