Now, I’m not real up on my history, so I’m not sure how far this goes back, but it seems to me that at least post Nixon, the Presidential election is won by the candidate that is easiest to make fun of. Since clumsy Gerald Ford got beat by some dumb peanut farmer with a brother who couldn’t appear in front of a camera sober, we seem to vote based on which candidate would provide the best material.
My debate is two parter, I guess. Is this an accurate assesment, or am I just looking at the last 30 years through Groucho glasses. And if so, why have we stopped voting for the more dignified candidate. Are we sacrificing good leadership for the amusement factor? Or is there some factor of big personality in this modern sound byte 24hr news cycle day and age that means most laughable is most electable? How would this change your voting strageties for the primaries?
Michael Dukakis was much easier to make fun of than George H.W. Bush.
In, fact, I recall a cartoon from the first year of Bush I’s Administration. He’s sitting at his Oval Office desk scowling sulkily, and one of his aides says to another, “Find out why comedians aren’t imitating him!”
IMHO you are looking through ‘Groucho glasses’…and biased ones at that. Why do you think that RR was ‘easiest to make fun of’ than your peanut farmer? Or that GW Bush I was more ridiculous than M. Dukakis(!!)? For that matter, IMHO and certainly in retrospect Perot was the most ridiculous candidate between Bush/Clinton…and yet he only acted as a spoiler for Bush. Why do you consider Clinton ‘easiest to make fun of’ between him and Bush I anyway? Its only in hindsight that most of these things even make sense…did the American people have a time machine or something?
Even in the Bush/Gore race I would have to say that (given what was known at the time) Gore with his wooden delivery was the ‘easiest to make fun of’…though I guess with Bush’s speech gaffs it could go either way. Same with Kerry/Bush…I mean, IMHO Kerry was pretty easy to make fun of as well…hell, he STILL looks like Lurch to me.
And let’s not forget Nader. Or Sharpton. Or Buchanan (Pat, not James). Or Newt. Geez, the list goes on and on. There will never be a lack of material for any half-decent comedian to work with!
I would say equal numbers of people laughed at both candidates in 2004. And the guy who wins always looks easier to make fun of because people spend the next four years making fun of him.
Eh, your “dumb peanut farmer” graduted in the top 7% of his US Naval Acadamy class, was a legislator, governor and nobel laureate. Were it not for the death of his father, he might have been the first to command a nuclear sub. My lot is on “Groucho glasses.”
I think he’s describing the parody version of Carter, not the real thing. In real life, Ford wasn’t a klutz, he was a former athlete and a good skiier who had a couple of ill-timed public falls.
kind of my point. the parody version of anything is going to be ridiculous. we get probably 9 months of the parody version of the handful of losers and 4 plus years of the pardoy version of the winner. which are we gonna remeber as the most ridiculous?
In the gubernatorial recall election a few years back, the people of the Great, Golden State of California did not, in fact, elect Gary Coleman. Another point of evidence against the OP.
