We all have a tendency to favor candidates who’ve already amassed a fair amount of support, and to correspondingly shun outliers. As much as I’ve liked Rep. Tulsi Gabbard from the get-go, I’ve tended to think of her as an outlier. But that impression has now changed, due to Gabbard having gone after Sen. Kamala Harris the other night.

My shallow opinion is that I like Gabbard’s speaking voice more than Harris’s, which sometimes has a shrill, snappy, agitated tone. Gabbard’s occupies a lower register and she has a vibe of steady composure. Plus — this is where things get really superficial on my part — Gabbard is 5’8″ and Harris is a munchkin-sized 5’2″. Plus Gabbard is Mayor Pete‘s age — 37 — and I’d rather live in a world governed by younger heads of state rather than old farts with decades of experience.

So presentation-wise my order of preference among the female Democratic candidates is, frankly, Gabbard, Marianne Williamson, Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Substance-wise I lean towards Warren, but that’s not the whole game because of my willingness to be swayed by gut impressions.