Obama tailor-made for TV campaign
The tube is a powerful political weapon
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The national press is good at many things (and bad at plenty of others), but recognizing TV's influence over politics is generally not among them. Yes, we've all heard that John F. Kennedy fared better in the 1960 debates because Richard Nixon looked horrible, but many pundits' understanding of mass media hasn't advanced beyond those grainy images.
The National Journal's William Powers recently marveled at how TV is "driving the story and defining the conversation" in the presidential race to a "surprising degree," having apparently given undue credit previously to a sputtering newspaper industry and the Internet, which remains a minnow relative to the TV shark. Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, meanwhile, downplayed Obama's candidacy by telling Bill O'Reilly that the Illinois senator is "a terrific guy for television," which amounts to saying, "He's a good tennis player, but only on clay courts in summer."
NEWS FLASH to Thomas and any other doubting brethren: Politics now is television, occasionally sliced into bits for consumption on computers.
Granted, newspapers still enjoy an agenda-setting role and reach the most sophisticated portion of the electorate, but those readers tend to be committed already and usually don't sway elections. For the vast majority of voters, TV serves as the primary interface between candidates and the public, most of whom will never attend a rally, much less shake a hand.
TV's visual cues thus dictate the campaign's tone, and it's hard to imagine a more striking juxtaposition than McCain standing alongside Obama -- a contrast that sends a starker message of what the Democrats desire to represent in this campaign than any number of speeches ever could.
McCain is 71 years old and will celebrate another birthday before Election Day. He clearly possesses impressive energy to weather the campaign grind, and the Arizona senator is an amiable and witty talkshow guest (witness his appearances on "The Daily Show"). He also loves to accentuate family longevity by trotting out his 95-year-old mother.
That said, McCain looks every bit of his age, which hasn't been helped by skin cancer and the punishment endured in the Hanoi Hilton. In addition, his oratory often flatly falls back on using the term "my friends" like a poorly placed comma.
COMPARE THAT to Obama, the physical embodiment of the "change" about which candidates keep carping -- something Hillary Clinton, by virtue of her history, is hard-pressed to represent.
At 46, Obama is the only candidate within the media-friendly 18-49 demographic. He's tall (roughly seven inches taller than McCain at 6'2"), charismatic and smooth speaking off the cuff. His mixed-race heritage speaks directly to a youth culture where white kids are the biggest buyers of rap music and Will Smith is perhaps the world's leading box office draw.
Next to McCain, the image will be unavoidable: A party leader representative of the U.S.' multiethnic future, looking even more energetic and vital opposite someone that could charitably be cast as a loyal defender of the nation's standards and traditions. In a sense, the symbolic distinctions play to both parties' core strengths, while offering a clearly defined choice for those in the middle.
Put aside specific policy arguments to dispassionately handicap the participants based on TV's style-over-substance criteria and, to borrow a phrase, Obama will drink his milkshake.
AS THE WASHINGTON POST'S Howard Kurtz noted, the current election has consistently rejected media-advanced storylines, in coverage where "the personal trumps the political" and "what is actually happening ... is insufficiently exciting compared with speculation about what might happen down the road."
He's right, and TV's surface-deep perspective does tend to lobotomize political discourse. If the medium's built for anything, it's covering a prizefight, obsessing over who's ahead on points. So anticipating a narrative that's more personal than political, the figure that fundamentally favors the Democrats -- in the left corner, wearing the blue trunks -- is Barack Obama.
