At least once a week I phone my 92-year-old aunt in Michigan. We talk about everything — how family members are doing, and what we eat, think and worry about. My aunt watches all the news programs on TV and reads newspapers, so when she said, “I'm not certain that a president is important anymore,” I figured she had concluded that the president had been made politically impotent by all the congressional bickering and stalemates. But I was wrong. She thinks that we no longer consider a president's character of any value because everyone who's running for office seems to lack it.

Is this true? How do the media present both the president and presidential candidates? I plowed through various publications I have lying around. One article points out that this year's crop of candidates don't have a sense of humor. As an example, the writer quotes Mitt Romney, who had been showered with glitter by a protester, and responded with: “That's not all that's in my hair, I'll tell you that. I glue it on every morning, whether I need to or not.” What kind of insight does that give me about Romney? Not much.

Elsewhere I read that Romney is a “blank,” that no one really knows him, that no one can ever get close to him. Interesting. I'd like to know more, but more is hard to come by.

Then I come across an article on why Romney does not talk about his religion. One political operative says that Romney's Mormonism is no longer an issue because everyone has already decided whether it matters to them. Maybe so, I think, but I'm more interested in how Mormonism has affected who Romney is, not whether I'm for or against Mormonism itself.

Then I read an article by Frank Bruni, who says that Romney's religion is important “in terms of its cultural, psychological and emotional imprint on him.”

Finally, I think, someone is interested in analyzing Romney's character.

Bruni asks whether Romney's “guardedness, aloofness, and sporadic defensiveness” might be the result of his experience “belonging to a minority tribe that has often been maligned and has operated in secret.” Bruni raises other points, too, and gives examples. I wish this kind of article were not the exception, but the rule.

It's not that the media are biased as much as they are simply too superficial.

What do I read about President Barack Obama himself? That he does not readily show emotion; that he's “cool” in a reserved way. That he should “fight back” when criticized. That his wife “brings him down to earth.” What are we missing here?

We're missing everything that we need to know about what makes our president who he is. Ever since I read James David Barber's book “The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House” years ago, I have looked at candidates and presidents in a more enlightened way.

Since Obama became president more than three years ago, only recently have I finally read something about him that I find helpful in understanding what perhaps gives rise to the above judgments about him.

Janny Scott, a newspaper reporter and biographer, wrote a biography of his mother, “A Singular Woman,” which was published in 2011 by Riverhead Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Penguin is well known as a publisher of what we generally refer to as high-quality books.

One chapter in the biography of the president's mother is devoted to her life in Indonesia. The president was 6 years old when the family moved there from Hawaii, so he attended Indonesian elementary school. Colleagues and friends of the family (both American expats and Javanese) point out how the president's experiences during this time have had an effect on who he is and how he behaves.

According to Barber, our interpersonal experience shapes a person's image of himself, his view of the world, and his political style. It's in our own interest to elect a president who, according to Barber, has an “active-positive” character because he wants to achieve results, has relatively high self-esteem, and is capable of changing his thinking. As a nation, we have not elected very many “active-positive” presidents. In fact, two of our “best” (Truman and Ford) were “accidental.”

Surely, there are many of us who want less gossip and arbitrary judgments, but more in-depth analyses so we can make better decisions about anyone who runs for any office, including president.

• Ursula Carlson, Ph.D., is professor emerita at Western Nevada College .