Hello everyone,
I am a master's student in theater history/criticism at the University of Texas at Austin. I recently became involved in politics during Howard Dean's campaign and have since decided to write my thesis on the performance of politics in the 2004 presidential election.
I have a good background in theater theory and practice, but I am relative novice at political history. Still I have been reading electoral history and political communications texts all summer. So, I want to take advantage of the collective wisdom of all the Kossacks to identify some political maxims (aka CW, or conventional wisdom).
Here is my first maxim:
Today I finished reading Eloquence in an Electronic Age, by political communications scholar Kathleen Hall Jamieson. She argues that the old fiery, aggressive, verbal oratorical style of the Romans, Greeks, and 19th century British and American politicians has since given way to a friendlier, more intimate, emotional and visual-centered style that works better on both radio (pioneered by FDR) and especially television (mastered by Ronald Reagan).
I am realizing now that Howard Dean exemplified the older style--he whipped his supporters into such a frenzy on such a daily basis that once the national eye was on him immediately after the Iowa caucus he forfeited chances of a comeback by repeating the animated, aggressive style his supporters had come to love about him.
So the maxim is: Act more like Bill Clinton (or Ronald Reagan) than Howard Dean--this is the age of television and Oprah, not William Wallace.
Dissent? Agreement? Other maxims related to performance style?