Dr. Mark Goulston is a former UCLA professor who helps high performing leaders, senior management and sales people reach their full potential using skills he learned training FBI and police hostage negotiators. He is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches and writes the weekly Tribune syndicated career advice column, "Solve Anything with Dr. Mark" and columns on leadership for FAST COMPANY and Directors Monthly and is an expert at People Jam. He is frequently called upon to share his expertise with regard to contemporary business, national and world news by television, radio and print media including: Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Newsweek, Time, Los Angeles Times, ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/CNN/BBC News, Oprah, and Today. Mark Goulston is the author of The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship, Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior, Get Out of Your Own Way at Work and PTSD for Dummies. For more information visit: www.markgoulston.com.

• Guest Blogger Mark Goulston--

I love flip-flopping as I look at the Presidential campaign through the lens of emotional intelligence. Maybe I should run for office.

Here goes my current iteration.

Obama is a charmer, not a fighter. Clinton is a fighter, not a charmer. Clinton is a bulldog and it's beginning to "feel" like Obama is slinging a lot of bull.

Given how uphill a battle it seems to get anything accomplished, I can see the advantage of a bulldog over someone with charm, but possibly not much else.
Truth be told, the reason President Bush may have beaten Gore and Kerry, is that compared to both, he was the bulldog to their complainer and whiner personae. Ironically, President Bush's bulldog personality may even be preferable to either Obama's (evangelical style) or Clinton's (grating style). The problem with Bush was his flawed vision (or perhaps his gamble that didn't pay off) and then even more flawed execution of that vision. If Bush had a better vision and was more effective in implementing it, he in fact has the better personality for the job.

Darn, this personality stuff is such a distraction.

I think what Americans need, want and ache for is something that none of the candidates have and if they had, most Americans would fight.

What we need is a candidate with a noble vision so powerful and compelling that we will put aside our more pressing personal needs to throw ourselves behind it.
Fighting for individual freedom was the vision that gave birth to this country, freedom from slavery caused the Civil War, making the world safe for democracy led to WW I, overthrowing evil led to WW II.

None of the candidates seems to have a transformational vision that can be that rising tide that lifts all Americans. Instead, they seem hopelessly locked in transactional myopia where the focus seems more about getting elected than on taking America to a place of world deserved prominence and eminence and above the perceived entitlement it seems to have with the rest of the world.

Mark Goulston's Further Insight: Post Primary PA Debate: The Devil You Know VS. The Devil You Don't