Would people who use foolish criteria to pick a Presidential candidate pick in the same way a surgeon to cut open their chests, a pilot to fly them through a storm, or a lawyer to keep them out of jail? I had assumed the answer to that is no, but Mort convinced me the answer is probably yes. They are being consistent, not perverse.
Many of us are frustrated that so much of many political campaigns comes down to factors that have no apparent connection to executive competence, substantive expertise, policy proposals, integrity, record of success/failure, and other evidence generally deemed indicative of future performance. Instead, factors such as likeability, shared beliefs, demographic identity, and the general feeling that the candidate is "like me" or "understands me" seem to sway the decisions of vast numbers of voters.
Perhaps that is because these people make few if any "personnel" decisions. Many people don't "select" doctors or other professionals but accept whomever is assigned to them or take the first referral. Many people never have a supervisory position in which they are called upon to choose a candidate or give a performance evaluation. If they have no experience managing people and no sense of how to go about it, picking a Presidential candidate may be more like picking a spouse than any other decision they've ever made.