Campaigns & Elections' Politics - February 2008 - (Page 25) I don’t need publican whose Nevada staff paid a kid $10 to hand out Hunter fliers while trick-or-treating last Halloween? Candidates could recruit pizza deliverymen or TV repairmen to infiltrate people’s homes and then deliver a pitch as they go about their job. (“Ma’am, I’m going to have to re-route your coaxial cables—coincidentally, just the way John Edwards would re-route money from the wealthy few to the middle class.”) From logo’d blimps to cell-phone accessories, political campaigns are taking their publicity cues from big business. The next step, obviously, is to buy naming rights for sporting venues and franchises. The John McCain Courage Arena has a good ring to it. And wouldn’t a baseball club called the Malibu Mitts be very cute? Candidates are brands now. Campaigns agonize over which font to use in their logos and the pop songs to make their trademarks. (Hillary even had an Idol-esque competition for her theme song.) Kings used to try to persuade people they were divinities. Our modern leaders try to persuade people they are commodities. What’s missing from the candidates’ brands? They’ve got visuals, sound … but no scents! A lot of celebrities have their own scents, and it’s a medium that’s especially suited to conjuring up connotations about a public figure’s personal qualities. Eau de Obama could smell like Christian Dior’s 1991 Dune, a clean, androgynous odor that rejected the tired patchoulis of the past. An Eau de Huckabee could underlay standard cologne with notes of frankincense and myrrh, to subliminally remind voters of his Christian faith. Mitt Romney’s would feature just one fragrance note: vanilla. Rudy’s? The scent of fear. Our presidential candidates have entered our social lives, our home lives, our commuting lives, our religious lives. There’s still an opening, though, for candidates to come into our bathrooms. I’m thinking of interactive screens on the back of public toilet stalls. We don’t yet have candidates in our love lives, either, unless you’re one of the people who buys Richard Nixon masks to wear in the boudoir. (If you are, please put down this magazine and seek immediate help.) What about candidates offering to do marriage proposals for a generous fee? Obama’s stump-speech line about succumbing to the “fierce urgency of now” would be perfect. The only problem with all this is that the more candidates reach out to us, the less we reach out to them. Every talented Romeo knows human beings want to work a little to fall in love, rather than be bombarded by 10,000 consecutive pleas. In flooding the airwaves, our presidential candidates are achieving the kind of banal ubiquity usually reserved for the Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan trifecta: You really don’t give a damn, but you know their latest news just because everywhere you turn, there they are. Never before in human history has it been so hard to avoid politics. I know that I want a break from it all. I don’t need my ringtone reminding me of Rudy, or to find a hello from Barack on my Facebook page. But, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll let you in on an embarrassing secret. That Ron Paul blimp? I kinda like it. The blimp can stay. Eve Fairbanks is an associate editor at The New Republic. my ringtone reminding me of Rudy, or to find a hello from Barack on my Facebook page. February 2008 Politics 25 http://www.clickandpledge.com http://www.clickandpledge.com
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