Britain Plunges Headlong Into 1960

Who looked better?

Fifty years ago, politics in the US changed forever.

Nixon and Kennedy debated live on TV.

Television was then a relatively new medium, but by 1960 it had penetrated most American households and most American lives.  What it had not yet touched was politics.

But once it did, the world would never be the same.

What works on TV and what works in running a government are two totally different things.  One need not be telegenic to be a great leader…. at least before TV.  It is unlikely that Abraham Lincoln – physically ugly (though now we are used to it), suffering from Marfan Syndrome, and apparently with a high, squeaky voice, could ever have been elected President.  It is unlikely that Frankly Roosevelt, bound to a wheelchair could have been elected President.  And many others.

The appearance of television changed everything.  Sweaty and shifty-eyed Richard Nixon was no match for the tanned and good looking JFK.  Ironically those who listened to the debate on radio felt that Nixon was the clear winner. On TV it was another matter.

Today, it is all about style as opposed to substance.  Just look at Sarah Palin.

Now, the UK is having an election,and for the first time, the three candidates for the PM slot are holding live televised debates.

This too has changed everything.

In the UK they have a parliamentary system. That is, the party with the greatest number of seats gets to form the new government. The head of the party becomes the Prime Minister.

For many years, the UK has been a two party system: The Tories (Conservatives) and Labor.  The Tories are the party of Margaret Thatcher and her pal Ronald Reagan.  Labor is the party of Tony Blair and his pal Bill Clinton (although in his last term he did cozy up to George Bush, invade Iraq and pretty much piss off everyone in the UK).  But you get the idea.

On April 15th, the British held their first live TV debate.  The two candidates, David Cameron for the Conservatives and Gordon Brown, the current PM, for Labor met to debate the issues.  They were joined by a third party candidate, Nick Clegg, from the Liberal Democrats.  The LibDems have, for years, been the minority party in the UK, garnering about 10% of the votes.

No more!

Suddenly, the electorate were exposed to something new. Some in the UK are calling him the Barak Obama of Britain. Well, this may be a bit much, but post-debate polls skyrocketed the LibDems shares to 33%, pushing Labor down to a shocking third place.

And all from one TV debate.

Now there is talk of a ‘hung Parliament’ (where no one gets a majority) and a coalition government.

The world of British politics has been turned upside down by the power of TV.  It wasn’t so much what Nick Clegg had to say, as opposed to the way he said it. He is good TV. Much better TV than Brown, who often looks half dead and Cameron who often looks like the kind of kid who got beaten up every day in junior high.

So now it’s Nick Clegg.

Good TV.

Can he run a government? Who knows.

And in the world of TV, does it matter?

In 1960, telegenic became the prime quality for the electability of a candidate.  If you were not telegenic, you were dead.

That was a 1960s piece of technology taking control over our lives in its own strange way.

They say Kennedy understood TV better than Nixon. This, I think is BS.  Kennedy was just better TV.  Clegg is better TV than Cameron or Brown.

But TV, as we all know, is a dying medium.

A candidate has yet to surface who understands or rather commands the web the way Kennedy commanded TV.

But it will come.

Like Facebook, it will sweep through the population in a wave of mass popularity.

And it’s not going to be like Obama rather lame tweets and blogs.

They remind me of the kind of tweet that The Travel Channel does “Be sure to tune into Andrew Zimmern tonight at 8pm”

Oh yeah, that’s something that I really want to see.

Nope.

It’s gonna be something very different.

And soon, Tweetability, like telegenic looks will be paramount to elect a leader.

Assuming you want a twitterer in the White House, or a TV host in 10 Downing Street.