Humour is the new weapon in the US presidential contest

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1182754,00.html

"Humour is politics by other means," says Mark Katz, a New York-based political writer who was on the White House staff throughout the Clinton years. He runs a "creative thinktank" called the Sound Bite Institute, describing himself as its resident scholar. He wrote gags for Clinton and Gore that helped to shape their image and defend them in times of political crisis.

"It's a great weapon, or device, to increase a speaker's likeability," Katz says. "Without strong ideology, people are more inclined to vote for the person they like. When someone uses an honest brand of humour, you connect with them.

"Humour does its best work when it's stating the sub-text, whether it be self-deprecating, or stating an essential truth ... Humour flatters, where spin insults. A politician is saying: I think you're smart enough to connect the dots."

Katz points to the presidential joke at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner last week that led within hours to Democrat-led news stories about Iraq casualties and their families, forcing the Republicans on to the defensive. "They tried to redefine a joke that is on us," says Katz. "Humour is a calculated risk ... It was a terrible lapse in judgment to try to redefine weapons of mass destruction as a self-deprecating topic. I think seven or eight people died in Iraq last week."

[mr_du04]

1. seems appropiate

since chimpy is such a joke.

[bryant69]

2. This is a good point

Reagan was a master of this particular strategy, and it's something we could certainly borrow from him.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[T_i_B]

4. I have a dodgy question to ask

Did Howard Dean fail to get enough votes because he was so bad at this strategy? I for one liked his substance but when I saw him on the British news he did come across as a tad uptight.

[Ricdude]

3. Music is my weapon.

I set bits of commentary/news/speeches to music, hopefully appealing to the attention-span-challenged out there. If I'm really lucky, some people are emailing the songs to their friends, and spreading the message. Check the link in my .sig if you're interested...

[mobuto]

5. If humor is the weapon with which the 2004 campaign

will be waged, we're going to lose in a landslide. Kerry's jokes are, almost without exception, horrifically corny.

Let Bush joke, while millions are out work, while American soldiers are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. Kerry has gravitas.