When The Young Lee Teng-hui was released in July of this year, it was an instant best seller. Not to be outdone, newspapers and magazines published story after story about "The Young Peng Ming-min," "The Young Hsu Hsin-liang," "The Young Lin Yang-kang" . . . . But how important are such stories to voters?

Seeing the man in the boy

"By understanding a politician's youth, you can draw a rough profile of his character that will at least satisfy the masses' curiosity," says Yang Chih-hung, dean of the Graduate School of Communications Management at Ming Chuan College.

"From a psychological point of view, the earliest experiences are very important--they lay the groundwork for a lifetime," notes Chen Chiao-mei, a professor of psychology at National Chengchih University. This is especially so for one's emotional responses and sense of identity. Responses involving pride, love and intimacy, as well as fear, are all rooted in the earliest experiences.

What's more, childhoods cast even longer shadows on how one deals with emotions and interpersonal relations, because such behavior is largely learned, as is aggressiveness and drive. Drive-- combining will, pluck and perseverance--is an important factor in future success.

Which is to say, if Mencius' mother hadn't switched to a higher-brow neighborhood when she saw her son playing at being a shopkeeper or butcher, and if she hadn't cut the cloth on her loom to illustrate the fruitlessness of doing things half way, might not Mencius have ended up only a slick-talking market salesman? If General Yue Fei's mother hadn't written with a knife "Loyally Repay [your] Debt to the Nation" on his back, might not he have forgotten her command? The answers are obvious.

Besides drive, another factor that relates to success is ability, which includes both intelligence and social skills. Needless to say, these too must start to be cultivated at a young age.

There are of course numerous factors that make the man, including the era in which he grows up, his family background and values, his formal education, and his genes. These combine to offset or complement each other. But how does this sketch, drawn from different perspectives, affect how people vote?

Some people say that voting for a president isn't like negotiating a marriage. His family background and whether he was a wise, good little boy or a naughty brat don't have much bearing on whether or not he gets elected.

Psychologists are more cautious, noting that many factors affect how the electorate votes. A careful look reveals that many people vote for the candidate they like, not for the candidate whose stands on the issues match their own.

Chen Chiao-mei calls them "voters on the political margins." They may not have much interest in politics per se, and they may lack the ability to determine which of the candidates takes better positions on the issues. For them, gut feelings, stereotypes and personal connections--or some combination thereof--are decisive.

"Silver spoons" vs. "farm boys"

For example, many voters hate those born into great wealth and vote for candidates with scholarly images, assuming that scholars must have expertise to offer the nation and intellectuals' sense of high moral purpose. But is there really any logic to these scholars' views? Will their policies work? Such questions are not these voters' main concerns.

When two candidates are on an equal footing based on primary considerations, secondary factors become decisive. These include provincial, ethnic and class origin. Even physical appearance isn't overlooked. Peng Ming-min, the winner of the DPP's primaries was born to an illustrious Taiwanese family, whose ancestors were models of academic excellence in early Taiwan. "Farm boy" Hsu Hsin-liang, born in a Hakka village, naturally looked less impressive in comparison. It was easy to predict that he would lose in the primaries.

The tendency to elect someone for who he is rather than where he stands can't be changed overnight. The fact is that judgments based on candidates' backgrounds are personal and idiosyncratic. In a democratic age, people may be interested in the personal lives and characteristics of politicians, but these may have no connection to where the politicians lead the nation.

"With Taiwan becoming more and more democratic, politicians must be concerned with the people's opinions. They need large staffs to collect polling and survey data, which are used when setting policy," Yang Chih-hung points out. And so the description of political leaders in the age of democracy as "followers of the crowd" is right on target.

Democracies need no gods

Since this is after all a democratic society, most candidates will immediately show their disapproval when asked if it is necessary to "doctor the image of a candidate's childhood."

"Chien-hsuan had a very ordinary childhood. We aren't going to fabricate some legend to show his heroism or saintliness," says his wife Su Fa-chao. "Such factors as ethnic and family background are completely irrelevant in our view." She says that even if there weren't any legends about Sun Yat-sen's childhood, it wouldn't reduce the greatness of his later achievements. Anyway, the age of "deification" in ROC politics has already passed.

Chen Lu-an, whose family background has always been a focus of public interest, stresses that he shows voters his "true face." His request "Don't look at my family's background, look at my family's values" is now in wide currency. In Sincerity, after mentioning that he was both first in his grade school class and president of it for six years running, Lin Yang-kang says "there's nothing interesting to tell" about being class president--" It was just a matter of barking rote orders and collecting notebooks. It didn't require any special abilities, just enthusiasm and a sense of responsibility." He's pretty straight-forward about it, lacking any grandiose pretensions.

With such a self-assessment, no wonder some readers think that politicians' childhoods were unimpressive. Even Ho Fei-peng, who published The Young Lee Teng-hui, says that he expected Lee's childhood to be "more eventful and moving." When he read the book, he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.

"Compared to such child prodigies as Mozart and Einstein, there's not much to the childhoods of politicians. But it's precisely because their talents aren't locked into a single realm that they can cultivate the broad field of vision needed in politics," explains Yang Chih-hung.

The age of turning political leaders into god-like figures has passed. And even if some candidate tried to cultivate such an image, since these are the first popular elections for an ROC president, there is no model to follow. The image might not suit the voters' "tastes." For instance, Hsu Hsin-liang played up his image as a poor kid who worked hard to get where he is today, a strategy that worked well in the elections for the legislature. But in the presidential primaries the former asset became a liability: "We Taiwanese know all about being down on our luck," voters thought. "Why should we elect some hard-luck case as president?"

Yang Chih-hung points out that in today's lively and diverse society, different value systems are meeting and merging. What kind of image will attract what kind of voter? How much of an impact will it make? The answers are hard to give. It's always a case of 20-20 hindsight.

Since political leaders can't be deified anymore, many people look to stories of candidates' youths to answer the questions, Why them? What makes them so special? What makes them think they can compete for the nation's highest office? Do the heroic youths of today want to become president?

Many would like to get to the bottom of these questions. For sure, the wheels of time have destroyed legends and shattered people's belief in the inviolability of authority. If you go to the book store, you'll find the books about the candidates' youths right next to biographies of current teen idols. Who is to say which will sell better?