A handwriting expert analyzed the 2016 candidates' signatures. The results are fascinating.

(Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

last updated 21 September 2015

Politicians aren't known as the most honest bunch, but their handwriting might reveal the truth they don't want to share. Politico Magazine asked a Secret Service-trained handwriting expert, Michelle Dresbold, to share her reactions to the 2016 contenders' signatures, with telling results.

To be sure, some of it seems like a bit of a stretch — does Chris Christie's signature really show he likes baseball? Does Marco Rubio subconsciously sign his name "Mama" because he was deeply influenced by his mom? Maybe not, but it's not hard to be persuaded by Dresbold's analysis that Hillary Clinton's upright print-writing indicates control and George Pataki's use of a Greek E for his middle initial suggests cultural depth.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.