WASHINGTON — Now that the presidential contest is looking ever more like a two-man race, the country can't help but marvel: John McCain, once a longshot, wouldn't lie down. Barack Obama, the new kid, charmed voters. And Hillary Rodham Clinton, an early favorite, has yet to surrender.
But Arlyn J. Imberman would say clues to the nomination fight were in plain sight, every time a candidate wrote a thank-you note, inscribed a memoir or autographed a pair of boxing gloves.
"Obama is very much his writing -- fluid, graceful. McCain's is angular and intense; he's a pit bull. And look at the perfectionism in Hillary's -- straight up, precise. She is persistent and is not going to give up until she absolutely has to," said Imberman, a court-certified graphologist based in New York.
Presidential signatures are trademarks that grace everything from historic documents to the souvenir M&M's boxes handed out on Air Force One. And history suggests penmanship can reflect personality.
Abraham Lincoln set 3 million slaves free with a signature that was as modest and unadorned as he was. Ronald Reagan -- the "great communicator" -- penned rounded letters that radiated warmth. Jimmy Carter etched an autograph that was aloof and cerebral. And Richard Nixon, who entered the White House with a big, bold R and N, left in deflated disgrace, his signature collapsing as well.
Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart's 1984 campaign suffered when it was revealed that he had changed his signature several times over the years. "Who is Gary Hart?" his rivals demanded.
"Our handwriting is uniquely ours; an imprint as singular as a fingerprint," Imberman asserted in a book she recently co-wrote, "Signature for Success" (in which, by the way, she concluded that Bill and Hillary Clinton have a gender role reversal going).
Assuming handwriting can't be any less reliable an indicator of character than eating waffles, drinking a boilermaker or holding forth on a bus called the Straight Talk Express, three court-certified graphologists gleaned the following by looking at writing samples from Obama, Clinton and McCain:
Despite the charges of elitism flying around, none of the 2008 presidential candidates is a snob. Equally encouraging, all of them appear intelligent and driven.
But two, the experts said, strive to remain opaque amid the public glare. Two are reluctant to embrace their family legacies. One lacks warmth, whereas another can talk to almost anyone. One is flexible, another controlled, the third a loose cannon.
