Packaging plays a huge roll. Issues are often totally missing from campaigns, but not imaging.
Beg pardon, Au, I meant New Haven!
It seems to me that the Kennedy administration started the ball rolling in the gloss and glitter department. "Camelot" could have come right out of Disney! The entire administration was packaged to emit almost a fairy tale quality, most of which was nothing more than spin.
It was the media (and the popularity of the new Lerner-Loewe musical) that made the "Camelot" myth -- it seemed quite saccharine and troubling to the Kennedys and their supporters at first.
Tartarin- Maybe so, but they learned to use it to their advantage!
Well, not really. They didn't have time. The real hype from the comparison with "Camelot" came just about when little John saluted at his father's funeral, and by then it was a little late... The Camelot thing has always been more retrospective than in use during the actual administration.
Tartarin- Yeah, maybe, but the public continued to believe and honor this Kennedy cult which lasted for years. Only later, when information came out which showed the true side of Kennedy, did people set aside this entire aura of make believe that surrounded him, and perceived him in a more realistic light.
I remember that during those years, I used to think that if I heard the word "charisma" one more time, that I would barf!
Why and how people vote has always provided a lot of jobs for people in the advertising and promotion fields. Very, very few vote on issues, for many reasons. There are many issues, and many opinions on issues. Thereefore, the presentation of them and the person is important.
Bush as hottie (what an awful term) was raised by the republicans as a stab at another part of the campaign - remember, they've always gone after the so-called womens' vote. For me it represents some peculiar thinking on the part of these republicans. If they're thinking of selling Bush along the lines of a Tom Cruise or somebody, they've missed the boat. Very few male republicans come across as having ever even known the word sex. And that in turn makes them seem cold and unfeeling. So I guess somebody in their PR department has decided to change the look a little. It doesn't even conflict with a picture of Bush as a father and husband, because we never see him in those roles either.
You're right, Tartarin, about the Camelot part coming late in the story of the Kennedy's. And why is the subject of a possible, long-dead affair with Kennedy broguht up now, when there is nobody around to accept or refute the story? We all know that Kennedy was a chaser, it really didn't seem to affect many people's picture of him. Are the repubs looking for any possible smear they can find? Looks that way.
Anyway, I've just read something interesting (I wish I could remember where) on a connection between polls showing Bush as popular leader, but ranking low in a lot of aspects that seem to conflict with that, and packaged picture of him. The article talked about being leery of those polls, because they might not be saying what people think they're saying.
This is all getting esoteric.
This whole "sex"thing with presidents is so over done, it makes one wonder if Americans will ever grow up.
In any case, guys like Kennedy and Clinton did what they did to consenting adults. MY GUESS: None of the women involved feel they were short changed.
Bush is doing it to this country. MY GUESS: We are getting short changed.
In any case, if Bush is going to do it, I'd prefer he do it to consenting adults (women or men) rather than to the country as a whole. (No pun intended.)
I think the polls are off, but I don't think we'll know how or why for quite some time. I do know people -- that is to say those polled -- increasingly manipulate the polls right back. I say that because I have done that myself and know others who have -- deliberately throwing the pollster off track, making the overall results very ambiguous. In my case, it was a Republican push pollster who called, and I enjoyed that rare occasion when I have all my wits about me and could mislead quite smoothly!!
Phoenix -- there's a real difference between the media, on their own, treating the president like a movie star because that gets them advertising dollars -- and all the president's men making sure the president is treated like a movie star by the media, deliberately misleading the public for political gain. Former: Kennedy. Latter: Bush.
Mamaj: I don't think it matters a whit about Kennedy's affairs -- didn't then, doesn't now. If his detractors go too far down that road, the Reps or their supporters will get smeared in the same way they got smeared when they set Starr on Clinton. There will always be rightwingers who haven't a problem watching families separated and killed in Iraq but who just can't standing watching a president have a sex life. They make a lot of noise, but they get little respect.
edgarblythe wrote:Kennedy actually appears to have gotten less votes for president than another 'hottie', Richard Nixon. If there had been a recount in Cook County it is widely believed Kennedy would not have won the election.
A re-count? How could they do a re-count, when 20,000 votes were in machines at the bottom of Lake Michigan?
I was just thinking back to the early nineties, when politicians from both camps began making appearances on late-night talk shows, showing their musical prowess or their comedic ability. So actually, it could be said that the promotion of our leaders as celebrities rather than politicians (by their advisers, not the press) really started rolling off then. Bush is simply taking it a little further to include the special effects with his posing to appeal to a larger audience than the late-night or Oprah audiences. So maybe the issue isn't that he's packaging himself in a Hollywood style, but that he's spending a hell of a lot more money at it (apparently) at a time when our country has more important things to spend money on. He's also doing it at a time when he, as our distinguished commander in chief, should be handling the world-wide turmoil that continues to boil in his direction. Oh yeah, I forgot that he's not really the guy in charge...nevermind.
