Commercialization of Politics

The concept of the voter as consumer necessarily leads to the concept of the politician as seller. "The fact that election campaigns are indistinguishable in form (and often in content) from product marketing campaigns is the single most dramatic instance of the triumph of the advertising model of persuasive communication in modern society." ¹⁵⁵ As early as the Eisenhower­Stevenson presidential contest of 1956, Nation's Business magazine predicted that Democrats and Republicans alike would market candidates using the same techniques that advertisers employ to market products. ¹⁵⁶ Over thirty years later, the 1988 Bush­Dukakis election fulfilled the prediction. Forklifts, flag factories, tanks, harbor rides, and convict turnstiles were integral images in the candidates' political plugs. ¹⁵⁷

Advertising agency professionals serve as "media consultants" to the candidates and orchestrate elections as if they were mass marketing campaigns. All three of the major candidates in the 1992 presidential election race turned to Madison Avenue gurus. George Bush, ¹⁵⁸ Bill Clinton, ¹⁵⁹ and even Ross Perot ¹⁶⁰ came to realize that "[t]he second most visible part of a campaign, after the candidate, is the advertising." ¹⁶¹ Voter attitudes are studied and the electorate segmented by the same research strategies employed for selling pretzels and beer. By the grace of audience demographics and psychographics, the candidate becomes a "package put together by pollsters, image­makers, pulsetakers, and speech writers." ¹⁶²

All throughout, candidate image governs, and reason­why information is too easily disregarded. That is, a candidate is contextualized in some peculiar but sympathetic environment, while concrete and detailed discussion of important issues of the day is largely forsaken. Both advertisers and politicians appreciate the force of repetitive and concise slogans. In the 1992 presidential election campaigns, for example, Bill Clinton rarely spoke without invoking the pitch: "courage to change"; meanwhile, the incumbent George Bush asked again and again: "Who do you trust?" As politicians master the strategies of advertising, the line between important political discourse and mass marketing becomes increasingly blurred. ¹⁶³ Citizen­consumers "buy an argument" with the same pecuniary logic by which they buy products and services. Indeed, presidential aspirant Walter Mondale counseled voters in 1984 to approach politics in the same way they buy burgers­"Where's the beef?" ¹⁶⁴