WELL: The real question is whether or not it's true: does character really trump issues? One would be tempted, taking a realist outlook on democracy, to say yes--it's certainly the case that policy recommendations are really just calculated to appeal to certain constituencies, and have a high chance of never coming to pass.
But does that mean that issues really don't matter? If we follow the character logic regressively back to its obvious genesis, you'd be forced to argue something like the following: a candidate with a really trustworthy persona and absolutely no positions on any issue should be the most electable sort of candidate there is. But this is rather obviously not true. Positions on issues matter for the same reason that anything else about a candidate matters: the willingness to talk about taxes, or foreig policy, or whatever, says something about the ordering of preferences and signals to a voter what sort of person is talking in a really meaningful way. And, of course, these sorts of judgments are built into the way we think about politics (even if we don't do it consciously): consequently, a statement of the form "The character of the candidate is itself the only "issue," and it is furthermore the only "issue" about which a thinking voter can be expected to make up his or her mind," can easily be interpreted to be bordering on the incoherent*.
*that doesn't mean I don't think the Hitch isn't right, it's just a lot more complicated than he's letting on.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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