It was the 26th of September; the year was 1960. It was a presidential election year in America, and it was the year American elections would change forever. In this year, on this day, Vice President Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy engaged in the first televised debate. Kennedy had been campaigning in California. He was tall, tan, and charismatic. Nixon had been sick in the hospital. He was underweight, pale, and unshaven. Some 70 million Americans tuned-in for the debate, and at the end, most thought the young Senator from Massachusetts had won. Yet, history would show that Richard Nixon won that debate. In fact, the political analysts listening in on the old “radio” technology declared Nixon the champion immediately following the debate.
So why was it that Kennedy won? He looked more presidential. Some speculate that had Nixon worn makeup things might have turned out differently. I’m not sure any type of foundation could have saved Nixon, because it wasn’t just looks – it was Kennedy’s charm. His charisma transgressed the space between actor and audience – literally reaching through the television and into American’s homes – Kennedy was able to touch our hearts.
This was the entrance of television into the political arena. It was quite literally the dawn of a new era where politics and pop culture seemingly merged into one. The presidents that followed would be actors (Ronald Regan), cowboys (George W. Bush [so he claims]), and lady’s men (William Jefferson Clinton). They were all, for the most part: good looking, svelte, and commanding. Since 1960 the media, specifically television, has gone from being a part of the political conversation to moderating it. News has gone from being broadcast three times a day to 24 hours a day, and the American public’s appetite for the sensational story has grown even as our need to be entertained has become more sophisticated. Now, enter Obama and Hillary.
He has won every primary since Super Duper Tuesday. On that fateful day he won 9 of the 13 primaries. By most assessments he has not yet won, but his momentum is continuing to build. Yet, Obama wasn’t always this popular. It wasn’t long ago that Hillary was the Democrat’s golden child. She was the belle of the ball; the star of the show – she was going to be the next President of the United States of America.
When Larry King asked Jon Stewart what happened – how Hillary lost momentum, how Barack gained it – Stewart replied:
STEWART: What do you mean what happened?
KING: She was the presumptive winner.
STEWART: It’s as though people within the know – the media anointed her in a manner, but you know what happened? People started to vote….And that seemed to change the dynamic slightly.
(See: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0802/20/lkl.01.html)
What Stewart is saying is: because the media declared Hillary the frontrunner, she was the frontrunner. However, after the first vote in Iowa, Hillary was not the frontrunner, consequently the media declared a new one – Sen. Barack Obama. Since Iowa, Obama’s momentum has been building. But, momentum relies on media presence. And right now the media favors Obama. He is endorsed by every major Texas newspaper and his picture seems permanently plastered to the front page. In an effort to make up for their prior, apparently incorrect, prediction that Hillary was the presumptive nominee, newspapers are rushing to criticize her and falling over backwards to praise him. It is as if we are expected to forget that in January Hillary won the endorsements of media giants like the Des Moines Register and the New York Times.
Looking just at the headlines from CNN’s “Political Ticker” there is a clear trend of negativism toward the Clinton campaign:
- Clinton offers regrets for husband’s remarks
- Clinton campaign goes after upcoming Ohio ad
- Clinton pushes debate moment in new ad
- Obama: I’d get different treatment if I lost as much as Clinton
- Clinton: ‘Shame on you, Barack Obama’
- Blitzer: ‘Huge challenge’ ahead for Clinton
Of course, Obama has had his share of negative coverage (See: http://mediamatters.org/items/200802190002, where during a February 18 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball a picture of Osama Bin Laden appeared while host Chris Matthews was discussing Sen. Barack Obama ) – no politician is immune. But the attacks against Hillary Clinton seem much more personal.
Perhaps it’s because our society doesn’t value the beauty of women over a certain age. How many major male news anchors over 50 can you name? Now name the women. (Can you name any major female news anchors, at all?) In their book, Social Problems 9th ed.(2003), sociologists D. Stanley Eitzen and Maxine Baca Zinn point-out that women only hold 15 percent of the executive positions at U.S. newspapers despite comprising one-third of the workforce. They also point to the fact that in “1998 women only reported 19 percent of all stories on network evening news programs”(Eitzen & Zinn, 258).
And what of the critique of Hillary’s facial expressions? Men are not criticized on such grounds, but it’s not because they don’t make funny faces. I have been less than 5ft away from Obama, taking pictures during one of his speeches, and let me tell you, he makes some pretty ridiculous facial expressions.
Ours is an age where a politician’s cleavage is still an appropriate headline. Take the Washington Post’s July 20, 2007 article which discussed a black v-neck top Hillary had worn on the Senate floor. The headline read: “Hillary Clinton’s Tentative Dip Into New Neckline Territory”.
(See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902668.html). To add insult to injury, the article spawned cleavage coverage all over the national news. Media Matters for America even reports that "MSNBC devoted a total of 23 minutes and 42 seconds to segments discussing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) 'cleavage'." (See: http://mediamatters.org/items/200708010003?f=s_search). Then, during NBC’s July 29 edition of Meet the Press, John Harwood, the CNBC chief Washington correspondent defended the Washington Post article by blaming Hillary:
“HARWOOD: I’m going to defend that column too. When you look at the calculation that goes into everything that Hillary Clinton does, for her to argue that she was not aware of what she was communicating by her dress is like Barry Bonds saying he thought he was rubbing down with
flaxseed oil, OK?” (See: http://mediamatters.org/items/200707290003?f=s_search)
(Accord: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20024553/page/5/).
Ours is an age where Virginia women I’ve spoken with state to me that they refuse to vote for Hillary because “she couldn’t hold onto her man”. Where David Shuster, a political correspondent on MSNBC's Tucker, asks if it seems like “Chelsea [Clinton] is being “pimped out” and an age where , during Imus In The Morning, it is suggested that she [Chelsea Clinton]“have sex with” delegates to aid her mother’s campaign.
(See: http://mediamatters.org/items/200802140018)
Ours is an age where people like Rush Limbaugh use name-calling and cruel taunting to punish women who’ve suffered the tragedy of their husband’s affairs, like when Limbaugh called Hillary “the most cheated-on woman in the world”. (See: http://mediamatters.org/items/200801240014). Ours is an age where on CNN’s Situation Room the editor-in-chief of Cyber News Service can say of Hillary’s performance during a debate that “it looked like, if someone had splashed water on Hillary, she would have melted like the Wicked Witch of the West”. (See: http://mediamatters.org/items/200801230011). These comments by the media, paired with the daily visual reminders of “young, tall, handsome”; compared to “old, shrill, shrewd” have made this campaign a competition for who looks more presidential – and in that competition a man will always win.
It seems likely that the media based Hillary’s former “front-runner” status on her record, which boasts far more experience than Sen. Obama’s, and didn’t factor into their polling the notion that voting for a woman is a hypothetical until the ballots are cast. In order for Americans to have a real shot at electing the best candidate, as opposed to the candidate that looks the most presidential, the media must stop calling attention to sexist (and racist) stereotypes and start focusing on platforms and voting records. Let the televised charisma monopolize our hearts, but let the media remind our minds that there is more to being a president than words and bringing people together.
The prominent exception to this rule seems to be President George W. Bush who’s funny faces have sparked a new marketplace of memorabilia.
