Sunday, November 6, 2011

Associations and non-journalistic media

A while ago I wrote about Romney's campaign strategy. He does not wear a tie, he comes off as cool and calm, and his central message is that he can help solve our economic crisis because he's a businessman.

That's his thing.

Cain is known for being a non-politician, meaning he was not part of creating the problem, and that he is a business man.

Perry is known for his job creation and how he's the best at it.

Ron Paul is the anti-big government crab and he's the most different out of the G.O.P candidates.

I'm being really vague for a reason, my point is that after seeing the candidates a million times, my mind can hardly really hold on to accurate details. The lasting impressions are what everything amounts to, and what candidates have repeated over and over again.

At the end of the day, I will not remember specifics, but a general gist. The candidates that are most successful are the ones that are able to portray a single strong message and have appealing "essence" or lasting impression that is created with repetition and singularity.

I think Obama is the best at this. In his last campaign he was the new, young, 'yes we can' man. He wanted to help people and really connected with them. He was a pleasant person, and he seemed completely disassociated  with the administration that got us into a financial crisis worse than the Great Depression.

People watch comedy shows like Saturday Night Live, the Colbert Report, and the Daily Show. The public  trusts these people more because they're more like normal people and not politicians. Also they are skeptical and funny. Negativity or scrutiny sometimes feels more accurate.

Anyways people listen to them despite their journalistic accuracy.

Saturday night live often has clips where it imitates candidates. It criticizes and mocks them and people love it. In order to recreate the characters they have to take what is best known about them (so people will understand its them) and make it funny. The point is not to be accurate, but to generalize the candidates behavior and give them a funnier version of it.

In the last presidential election. Barack Obama's speech making abilities were highlighted, the way he talks, but he was certainly not made fun of as much as Sarah Palin. Tina Fey killed Palin's chances all because she did such a great job mocking her.

I remember how much attention SNL got for those clips and it really worked against the G.O.P.

This election I cannot help but this that public comedy shows will work against the G.O.P. The general essence of the candidates will be made to seem repulsive in comparison to Obama's.

The impact the media's like SNL is so powerful because they offer a non-political standpoint and say things the real media can't say.

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