that IMAGER in the White House
Meyer, Karl E.
that IMAGER in the White House by KARL E. MEYER You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows...
...At the Republican Convention, images flew like hailstones— most memorably, perhaps, when the Governor of West Virginia retroactively endowed Lincoln with the "image of freedom...
...Political reporters vied with each other to find new and daring uses of the term...
...Dewey market-tested television by centering his campaign for re-election as Governor of New York on a carefully-staged question-and-answer TV show...
...how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads...
...It is not whether the candidate is folksy, vigorous, experienced, and pious, but whether he appears to have those qualities...
...Martin Grot-jahn, a psychiatrist at the University of Southern California who found that Kennedy and Nixon "have remarkably similar images...
...Richard Milhous Nixon's image is marred only by an unfortunate trace of Quakerism, but we have the word of Norman Vincent Peale that religious conflict has not been a problem for the Vice President...
...Another result was the heavy reliance on TV spectaculars after the 1952 election...
...On the other hand, if we peer backwards, certain Presidential candidates emerge with impeccable images: James Buchanan: A muscular six-footer with a superb record of experience (Secretary of State, Minister to Great Britain, Congressman), magnificent bearing, a stout Presbyterian...
...Mark Hanna, who knew a good image when he saw one, spoke for the ages when he gasped, "Now look, that damned cowboy is President of the United States...
...That is called crystallizing the image...
...I will mention only one modern instance...
...The year was 1952, the subject was the latest account—a product named Eisenhower — and the momentous words might have been these: "He's not penetrating, J.B...
...Above all, the image is associated with visual presentation...
...regular Methodist churchgoer...
...Surely it is appropriate that the word image came into currency after the 1952 Presidential campaign introduced, in a big way, two miracle ingredients into politics: (1) advertising agencies, and (2) television...
...No doubt the image merchants—Irwin Ross' apt name for the public relations fraternity—see this as an important matter of visual contrast, sort of like switching from the adult Western to a college quiz show...
...Let us begin in the approved IBM manner by turning the image into a statistical formula...
...So testified Dr...
...metaphor...
...True, he said...
...It can be plausibly argued that the advent of the image is a symptom of subtle corruption of the democratic process...
...The most basic of all images is the father image—the fellow who is now in the White House...
...His eccentric religious views, his immoderate espousal of liberty and revolution, his excessive wealth, and his withdrawn, intellectual manner would hardly provide an adequate image for a county coroner...
...it is obvious why Stephen Douglas trounced Lincoln in the race for the Senate (I would give Douglas a high 6.5...
...Like the Moliere character who found he had been talking prose all his life without knowing it, everyone by now has discovered that everything has an image^—from people and parties down to the lowly prune (depth interviews showed that the prune's image "was ridden with meanings, all unfortunate," according to Vance Packard...
...In pragmatic political terms, there is an implication as equally disturbing as the ethical implication...
...The shaping of an image, then, is a technique of manipulation, not of reasoned persuasion...
...5) possess an apparent record of extensive experience...
...It is that a candidate's potential for the White House is measured not by his true character but by the astral personality he manages to project through a vacuum tube...
...and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave...
...Now the primary meaning clearly conveys the impression of humbug, and the final meaning suggests com-pellingly that an image is a deceptive optical illusion...
...the conventional virtues], but it is very necessary to seem to have them...
...Chalmers M. Roberts of The Washington Post wrote that in agreeing to run together, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson "broke the standardized image so many have of them...
...Comparison tells, as they say in the advertisements...
...At the risk of grievously damaging the image of The Progressive and of battering up my own personalized image, I have consulted the dictionary to see what all the talk is about...
...We've been stuck with the word ever since, and no political discussion seems authoritative without a respectful reference to the candidate's image...
...Machiavelli phrased it in its classic form four centuries ago when he advised that on occasion the Prince must be faithless, adding: "But it is necessary to be able to disguise this character well, and to be a great feigner and dissembler...
...This is not only startling...
...It is strange that the Post Office relegates the best images to the more exotic denominations such as nineteen cents or two dollars...
...Rutherford B. Hayes: Stately appearance, with a reassuring patriarchal beard, moderate views, ample experience (Governor of Ohio), eight children...
...Courageous he still is . . . But the image has mellowed...
...ing package, not the reality within...
...What is startling is that this dissembling quality should now be treated as a matter of course—and that psychiatrists, theologians, and political writers should engage in solemn public autopsies on the candidate's phantom self...
...Then he wrapped the whole thing up in a masterful manner and asked for the order...
...Inevitably, Rabbi Max Nuss-baum of Los Angeles opened the third session of the Democratic Convention by beseeching divine assistance for an "America with a new image...
...In the years when radio was the chief tool of mass communications, there was little talk about images and a good deal of learned discourse about the intangible quality known as "radio personality...
...Nixon comes up with a respectable 6.5 score...
...The brand that has made the highest penetration on his brain will win his choice, and the nature of the human brain is such that a one-minute or thirty-second speech, expertly crystallized, gets a maximum penetration on its content...
...it is alarming...
...We will work to cut billions in Washington spending and bring your taxes down...
...Let us divide the image into seven components—manner, health, background, appearance, experience, viewpoint, and religion...
...George Washington, for example, would score a meager four because of his hopeless dentures, his insufficient informality, and his wealthy plantation background...
...Cemented or broken, images come in a variety of shapes and sizes, are negative or positive, bright or mousy, and even come in the big family size package...
...it closely followed the pattern of an agency new-business solicitation...
...4) look like a heroic marble bust...
...Bill Tyler, a columnist for Advertising Agency, wrote admiringly of one such performance in 1953: "Undoubtedly the most effective commercial of the month was the President's TV appearance around the first of June...
...a new image...
...An image, like an advertisement, is not the substance of an object but its ephemeral shadow...
...The psychology behind this campaign Was admirably stated by Rosser Reeves, partner in the advertising agency of Ted Bates & Co...
...Plato, The Republic It must have begun in a flossy executive suite on Madison Avenue...
...Self-made, well-publicized experience, zealously moderate, and as folksy as a Grandma Moses Christmas card, Mr...
...3) suggest a background of modest means...
...It is a form of cynicism appropriate to the era of Charles Van Doren...
...Another voice—the author's—asks, quietly, whether it is not time to call a halt to this silly and degrading game by burying the mischievously occult word...
...Pollster Louis Harris stated it this way in a Collier's article: "Eisenhower is no longer looked on as being vigorous...
...To them, I said, the truth would be nothing but the shadows of the images...
...Finally, we come to the present, and there can be little debate as to which candidate has the more saleable image...
...Today, one suspects, Nicolo would be a much-honored, much-quoted adviser to a Presidential candidate—as Murray Chotiner was until his image slipped...
...One can hear the authentic voice of Madison Avenue: "J.B., there'd be a civil war if the Republicans put up that village crank...
...And, significantly, the oracles are now saying that the campaign may hinge on the novel TV panel show involving both candidates...
...It is an unnerving revelation to measure our Presidents by this standardized image yardstick...
...counterpart...
...He is now looked on as being more kindly, wiser, and as one voter put it: 'kind of a grandfather to the republic' " From the mellow, kindly gramps we have come to the children's hour...
...As for Franklin Roosevelt (4.9), the negative factors are physical infirmity, excessive wealth, a Harvard degree...
...and (7) appear to be a model of church-going piety...
...Whether in the fine arts or the black arts, an image is a conceit, a concoction, a cabalistic device...
...There's no smack, no punch, no consumer impact...
...The President let each department head, armed with slides, present the story of his branch of the business...
...But tagging right behind is the new 1960style image which was heralded in August by a front-page headline in The Washington Star: "The Son You Vote For May Become President...
...Ulysses S. Grant: Humble origins, a salty virility, sound experience, a good Methodist, and —as a bonus— name well-known...
...This is scarcely a shocking doctrine...
...And there it was...
...Of all our Presidents, Lincoln has the most dismal image...
...In 1956, the Eisenhower image presented new problems because of the President's illnesses...
...Warren G. Harding: Master of the common touch, handsomest President of this century, staunch Baptist, broad experience (editor, Governor, Senator), sturdily moderate...
...The clinching argument is that all of these Presidents look far more impressive on a postage stamp than the likes of Jefferson or Washington...
...6) seem moderate in all his views...
...it is the beguilKARL E. MEYER, editorial writer for the Washington Post & Times-Herald, is currently on leave writing a book on the contemporary political scene...
...Both appear as victorious sons," quoth the good doctor, "but they are also brothers, alter egos in a sense, to many middle-aged persons who feel 'I realize I cannot be President but my brother can.'" Thus, among other distinctions, the 1960 campaign may afford the first instance of sibling image rivalry...
...It worked...
...An image by definition is a polite kind of fraud, a trick with mirrors, as well as a symbol or conception...
...Voice: "Mr...
...Oddball views on religion, an almost total lack of experience, rumors of illegitimacy, scarecrow appearance, melancholy disposition, an unfortunate ribald streak, and warts—all this adds up to what the PR boys would call a big nothing...
...The most dramatic demonstration of the weakness of this thesis can be made by taking an image inventory of Presidents past...
...The Pocket Oxford Dictionary scarcely affords comforting reading...
...Wilson would get the same low rating (3.2) for the opposite reasons: too aloof, too highbrow, too frail looking, too frostily righteous...
...Harry Truman is simply impossible: a failure in business, immoderate language, flashy sport-shirts—how he ever beat the perfectly-imaged (6.99) Thomas E. Dewey is matter for wonder...
...optical counterpart produced by rays of light reflected from mirror &c...
...Grotjahn also held out this bipartisan consolation: "Of course, the son may grow later—in the voter's conception—into a benevolent father image the way Franklin Delano Roosevelt did...
...In order for a candidate to compile a perfect score on the image-meter, he must (1) appear to have an acceptably homey manner...
...simile...
...This coincidence is suggestive...
...But, with a bow to the growth issue, Dr...
...John Adams would do little better by virtue of his dubious Unitarian affiliation, his crochety personality, and his affluent Harvard taint...
...Most important, in all its meanings an image connotes something contrived...
...In 1948, Thomas E. Dewey defeated Harold Stassen in the pivotal Oregon Presidential primary after a radio debate...
...A good deal of the preoccupation with the image is of course pretense and fad, springing from the innocent desire to appear au courant...
...But what can be broken can be mended, and the same week columnist William S. White explained that Kennedy approached Johnson "and asked him to provide the cement so sorely needed—the image of a Protestant Southwestern-er—so that the total image would not be solely that of a Catholic Easterner...
...2) seem in robust health...
...no man was ever more able to give assurances, or affirmed things with stronger oaths, and no man observed them less...
...Eisenhower, can you bring taxes down...
...statue esp...
...form, semblance...
...type...
...Then turn to John Fitzgerald Kennedy: controversial religious affiliation, overly callow appearance, a trace of arrogance in manner, reportedly an intellectual, the Harvard blot, millionaire background, an author...
...This is why, in the familiar usage, images are "projected," "created," "updated," "streamlined" and even (see above) "standardized...
...Reeves, whose firm boasted such blue-chip accounts as Colgate Toothpaste ("It cleans your breath while it cleans your teeth") and Carter's Little Liver Pills, put it this way: "I think of a man in a voting booth who hesitates between two levers as if he were pausing between competing tubes of toothpaste in a drugstore...
...He'll never do, J.B.," says a voice on the thirty-sixth floor, "with that corny New Frontier routine and that lover-boy look...
...William McKinley: Stunning profile, impression of enormous vitality, sound and sane views, well-seasoned (Governor and Congressman), a pillar of Methodism...
...An appropriate epitaph might be the Commandment which, as you recall, warns the children of Israel: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image...
...One result was the rash of spots...
...In essence, the assumption behind the talk about imagery is that appearance is far more important than reality...
...Did I say candidate...
...It is not necessary therefore for a prince to have all the above named qualities [i.e...
...The definition of image (root: imitari, to imitate) is: Imitation of object's external form, e.g...
...As a TV salesman, we think you will agree, Dwight Eisenhower has few peers .. ." Dissent among connoisseurs was inaudible...
...and men are so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived...
...however, he always succeeded in his deceptions, as he knew well this aspect of things...
...But there is more to it than that...
...Jefferson's image rating is a dismaying three...
...as object of worship...
...What we've got to do is to crystallize a new...
...In 1950, Mr...
...And in 1952, General Eisenhower was the first candidate to be successfully merchandised nationally over TV...
...The mere avowal of the paragraphs quoted above, more than anything else, has made Machiavelli's name synonomous with guile...
...The term has become so widely accepted that it seemed wholly in order last summer for an Associated Press profile of Richard M. Nixon to be subheaded "Man and Image"— with the undeniable implication that there was a difference between the two...
...Eisenhower: "Yes...
...Pardon...
...Alexander VI did nothing else but deceive men, he thought of nothing else, and found the occasion for it...
...Andrew Jackson might do a little better (4.5), but his abrupt manner, his gaunt appearance, and his splenetic political views would give an account executive pause...
...The change came swiftly...
...Cleveland, of course, is automatically out of the running because he publicly admitted to fathering a bastard child, and Teddy Roosevelt is too bumptious, too toothy, too dogmatic, and too wealthy...
Vol. 24 • November 1960 • No. 11
