The Outsiders
For the next three weeks, as part of my campaign to advance the cause of democracy as well as get politics into the comics section of the newspaper, this column will take an in-depth look at all four presidential candidates. More specifically, I will look at the images portrayed in their TV ads and Web sites.
Why “image” and not at something more substantial, like “policy”? Because policy is what wins endowed chairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, but image is what wins elections. How else do you explain two landslides for Bill Clinton?
I’ll tackle Gore and Bush over the next two Saturdays, but today, I begin with Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader. Call it my own humble attempt to atone for those debate snubs.
Buchanan, as it turns out, is the perfect man to start with, since he has just issued a new TV ad titled “Meatball.”
Good work, Pat! That’s the way to project a serious presidential image: Put out an ad named after a meat product, preferably an ad which consists almost entirely of an angry white male choking on a low-rent gut-bomb.
In this spot, the man is gulping down his dinner alone in his apartment while a TV news anchor says, “English is no longer the official language.”
This causes the man to turn red in the face, not because the liberal media is once again undercutting our American heritage, but because he is gagging on his big ol’ meat dumpling.
He then runs to the phone and dials 911, but unfortunately, this man is about to become another victim of the biggest problem facing our country, foreign languages. The emergency operator says, “Please listen for your language. For Spanish, press one. For Korean, press two. For Bengali, press three.”
By this time, our grunting and gasping hero has keeled over, done in by multiculturalism gone mad. The announcer then intones: “Do you ever miss English? Immigration is out of control. Bush and Gore are writing off English for good. What can you do? Vote the third party that puts America first. Vote Buchanan for President.”
So, what does this ad tell us about Mr. America First? It tells us, among other things, that he knows his core constituency, middle-aged guys eating meatballs alone in their apartments and getting red in the face during newscasts. It also tells us that Buchanan is proudly embracing the one issue that may boost him all the way into the 2 percent range in the popular vote: Keeping immigration under control.
Some of the other images in the Buchanan-Foster Web site (www.buchananreform.com) are also instructive. The first photo in the “biography” section shows him as a young man standing proudly with one of America’s legendary presidents. It apparently doesn’t bother Buchanan that this particular president is Richard Nixon and that he is legendary for many of the wrong reasons. Buchanan merely wants to show that he has presidential staff experience, and that he is intimately familiar with the workings of the Oval Office, and that he alone can return America to those halcyon days of Haldeman and Ehrlichman.
Even more alarming is a reminder that Buchanan was at 23 the “youngest editorial writer on a major newspaper in America.” So he was a Nixon staffer and a newspaper editorial writer? Is it a good idea to admit either of those?
There is also a picture of Buchanan posing with his wife, “the former Shelley Ann Scarney,” another former Nixon staffer. This photo is formal and stiff, and neither party looks particularly thrilled. However, I like it because it proves that Buchanan isn’t pandering on the “marriage” issue. You won’t see any warm, fuzzy Buchanan ads with Pat swapping big wet kisses with Shelley Ann.
No, Buchanan is too busy “decrying excessive immigration,” which might win him millions of votes except for the fact that “excessive immigration” is responsible for most of us being here in the first place.
Which leads us directly to Ralph Nader, a candidate who is the son of Lebanese immigrants Rose and Nathra Nader, according to his official Web site (www.votenader.com).
Nader’s Web site is just as you might expect: Simple, no-frills and full of pictures of the candidate dressed like an undertaker. Sometimes, in order to soften his zealous and puritanical image, he tries to smile, but it always comes out crooked, as if his face had been injured by an exploding air-bag.
Nader, who “does not accept soft money” (there’s a bulletin for you), does not have much of an advertising budget. But his Web site does contain one short TV ad which is a takeoff on a credit card ad: “One grilled tenderloin for fund-raiser, $1,000 a plate. Campaign ads with half-truths, $10 million. Price of special interests, $10 billion. Finding out the truth (shows Nader) - priceless. There are some things that money can’t buy.”
The final image depicts Nader working alone in a Spartan, disheveled office surrounded by overflowing filing cabinets. The image is that of a simple, hard-working crusader, and it is undoubtedly the real Nader. But is it presidential? Here’s what it says to me: Elect this guy and in no time at all he’ll have the Oval Office looking like your insurance agent’s cubicle.
There is also another video, the “intro video,” which was presumably used to introduce him at the Green Party convention. This is a snappy, furiously-edited collage of Nader’s public career. We see old footage of him taking on the auto companies, being cursed out by executives, crusading in front of government committees, appearing in a cowboy suit on “Saturday Night Live,” and, finally at the end, walking solemnly in front of the statue of Abe Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.
Obviously, we are supposed to catch the similarity between the craggy Abe and craggy Ralph. One of them fought slavery, the other fought the Corvair. I can see the resemblance.
The most disturbing image (besides Nader in a cowboy suit) is of the WTO riots in Seattle. We see tear gas and police and crowds. Nader is then shown saying, “Everything they believe in is being removed further to the Geneva Headquarters of the WTO.”
The picture of Nader defending the protesters is sure to resonate with his core constituency, which apparently consists of the members of Rage Against the Machine. Yet I have to wonder if a majority of American voters are looking for a president who will feel compelled, out of habit, to picket his own White House.
Yet there are more alarming revelations than that in Nader’s official bio. One sentence alone is enough to torpedo the man’s candidacy: “Studious, bright and intense, Ralph (as a child) followed the Yankees, played with David Halberstam, the future journalist, and read back issues of the Congressional Record with equal enthusiasm.”
Never mind the upsetting image of a 12-year-old eagerly devouring the Congressional Record while engaging in stickball games and economic policy debates with little pal David Halberstam. The real shocker here is THE NEW YORK YANKEES.
How can Mr. Down-With-Evil-Corporations root for the baseball equivalent of U.S. Steel? Or to put it in modern terms, how can he root for the baseball equivalent of the WTO, both of them being sinister, all-powerful machines dedicated to crushing the little guy?
Oh, Ralph. You really need to develop a passion for the Chicago Cubs.
One positive note about the Nader Web site. He, like Buchanan, doesn’t go in for any gooey family portraits of himself with the wife, the kids and the golden retriever. Of course, Nader has no wife, no kids and presumably no golden retriever. But he has wisely refrained from any photographs of himself clasping a class-action law brief lovingly to his breast. He refuses to pander to the sentimental vote.