Someone who stands for elections to access to a Government charge or a representative charge. That personal can stand for representing a party or an electoral grouping, or do it by himself or herself independently.

We find the origin of the term in latin “candidatus”, whose meaning was “who dressed in white”. In fact, white was the color of the toga of those who tried to gain access to a public office of the “cursus honorum”, that is, the political career in ancient Rome. White colour determined the purity and honesty of people to represent the citizens or the State, qualities that it considered that candidates had to possess, and they wore that color for this reason.

At this time, in addition, candidates should meet specific requirements to be able to attend such position. In this sense, they had to fall back on the electorate to access a magistracy, and it was necessary that they declare before the magistrate who  would preside over the electoral process – what was known as the “professio” – its intention of being selected for a position. The magistrate could accept or not accept the entry as a candidate depending on the applicant’s situation (Bravo 2011: 15).

Since the 1960s, the emergence and expansion of television in the United States, as well as the prevailing presidential system in the country, favored the first studies around the figure of the candidate. At this time, also, the electoral contest causes that ideological issues are set aside to focus on issues such as the image, personality and charisma of applicants, who should even be able to beat his opponents inside the parties themselves (Ruas, 2011: 81).

At the beginning of the 1970s, the image of candidates became, therefore, a recurrent matter of study, with contributions from authors such as McGinnis and Nimmo after the polls made by Sigel on the perception of the candidates over time. Furthermore, these researches coexisted with studies on the effects and influence of the media (McCombs and Shaw, Iyergar and kindergarten, etc.).

Later, studies in this area focused on the concept of leadership and its different types, and already at the beginning of the 1990s, the discipline pushed more towards the vision of the charisma of the candidates. In this sense, Max Weber had already proposed the charismatic legitimation of power (Weber, 2012), however, this idea is now picked up and researches deepened into political marketing perspective.

Renshon (1995) even distinguished three typologies and charismatic skills for a candidate: (1) ambition and determination. (2) interpersonal skills, as the ability to negotiate and reach agreements, the ability of persuasion or the capacity for cooperation with other political actors and the media; and (3) cognitive-creative skills, also necessary to deal with solving problems. Other researchers evaluated candidates charisma on the basis of other skills, such as rhetorical and discursive ability, intelligence, or even originality and creativity (Ruas, 2011: 82).

The figure of the candidate has been studied enough from political marketing, and there are numerous proposals raised by various authors on the characteristics of the ideal candidate. If we continue to deepen into these ideal qualities that the candidates should have, Barranco (1982) made the following statement on how he should be:

“Person of middle age, with attractive physical presence, honest, sincere, great sympathy, respectful with religion, with progressive ideas but not revolutionary, with a clear democratic past, a strong character and energetic, good speaker, pragmatic and realistic in its ideology, dynamic, in favour of living in peace but ready to defend the sovereignty of their nation, moderate, college-educated and experienced in political or business “.

Beyond the ideal qualities, Martinez Pandiani (2001) refers that the viability of a candidate should be assessed according to several aspects. On the one hand, privado and professional candidate’s history should be taken into account. His past transcends to public opinion as soon as the media broadcast his selection, and we have been known cases in which even the most intimate secrets become known and can affect the projection of the candidate and the success of the party. With the development of new communication technologies, in our days, this dissemination is even faster.

On the other hand, the appearance and limitations of the candidate must have been considered. Virtues of the candidate must be promoted. His shortcomings must also been recognized, but they must be turned into positive attributes towards the electorate. In this sense, it would be useful to develop a more specific analysis on how they would be the figure of an ideal candidate, and in what position is the chosen candidate, to work as well in improving his skills and resources.

The image-building of a candidate is a factor that can be decisive in the success of the project. The candidate has a starting image, but we can work it and shape it, rolling it to be more attractive, but at the same time we must ensure that we are conveying this image correctly. Voters perceive the image of the candidate in a way that may differ from what objectively it is transmitted by the parties and campaign teams, so frequent measurements about his perceptions become already important.

Today, as we have already been progressing, the figure of the candidate is closely linked to the media. The media cover the candidates, but also monitor its performances and broadcast her image. The candidate should take care of his relations with journalists, and show willingness, but without falling into undignified practices. The media have turned electoral campaigns, and have also led an evolution of the candidates.

In this sense, candidates nowadays have to adapt to the emergence of new media and social networks. It is very common that they have broadcast channels different from commons. It is also common that they frequent social networks and even that they have their profile, through which they can transmit information and interact with citizens.

In the case of submission of lists by political parties that make up various candidates, formations may choose to follow a random order, or to choose them using different criteria. In this way, lists can be found at to ensure the presence of men and women, including “zipper-lists”, which includes a male candidate, followed one female, and so on. The legislation of the territories may force to ensure this presence through different mechanisms of representation, as it happens in the Spanish case.