There is an old song by the late Johnny Cash titled ‘Iv’e been everywhere.’ Perhaps there is no better way to describe what takes place with all major front runner candidates when what I call ‘Presidential election season’ comes to town. The serious front runners pack up their bags and head down the campaign trail known as America. With these candidates comes a whole stockpile of rhetoric and self promoting agenda all warehoused and ready to ship to you. Perhaps some of you could use a good border patrol elixir to solve our illegal immigration problem. Others might be interested in a magical snake oil ointment that cures our national debt issue. And last but not least plenty of self promoting books and speeches to help you through this difficult time when having to vote for a specific candidate. One thing is for sure, whatever problem ails you America these candidates/salespeople are sure to have a cure. Now let’s clarify something here so that one doesn’t get this confused with let’s say a rock n roll concert tour. A concert so to speak is a performance by some specific artist, a campaign is an artist trying to sell you something. So as the retail politics machine and candidates hit the road this election season please read all warning labels and consumer reports on these products/solutions that will surely be presented to you. Many of these inviting direct voter contact appearances may seem intriguing however it may be just a scheme to sell you something you don’t need. Candidates coming to a city near you? Buyer beware. http://www.politics1.com/p2016.htm
-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Archives
Categories
Meta
I really like your comparison to sales in your post. I agree that politics and sales are very alike. Just as we have mentioned in class, campaigning and elections are similar to sporting events in which people root for their team, or their candidate. I think it is very interesting how the candidates sell themselves. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are both a part of the same party and have both announced their candidacy, and yet both are very different when it comes to how they sell themselves and how they try to present themselves to voters. We as voters must stay focused when we receive the frenzy of sales from candidates.
Without a doubt a presidential campaign is one great big sales pitch. I don’t think there is any secret that each campaign is trying to sell a specific idea or issue to a certain group of people. We even talked in class about how the same candidate may have a different “sales pitch” for different areas depending on what has been deemed important there by the campaign strategists. Politics is all about selling ideas and on the grandest stage of politics the selling comes at us harder than ever.
One thing that I found interesting in your discussion was your idea about how during every presidential run the candidates seem to suddenly be able to fix all of the countries problems. I myself have always wondered about this issue. Although candidates run on specific issues aren’t these problems nearly impossible to solve? At least until the next campaign year when the candidates suddenly knows how to fix it. The same issues are campaigned on year in and year out with little change ever occurring and yet people still believe that these candidates will come in and fix everything. Maybe we expect a little too much form our presidents, or maybe they just still themselves a little too high.
Like I said “buyer beware.”