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Long before the negative ad, politicians have always known how to play to the crowd

By Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 22, 2008 at 3 p.m.

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President John F. Kennedy delivers his famous speech

Associated Press ©

President John F. Kennedy delivers his famous speech "I am a Berliner" ("ich bin ein Berliner") in front of the city hall in West Berlin, June 26, 1963.

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Just because it makes the news doesn't make it spontaneous. That's a truth politicians know well and use to their advantage.

Party conventions are among the most carefully planned acts of political theater. In the 20th century, the rise of modern media made it particularly easy to stage a message, and not always at a convention.

Here, in chronological order, are 10 American examples.

Theodore Roosevelt

The 20th century starts with Theodore Roosevelt, as do its theatrical politics. A combination of swashbuckling hero and groundbreaking statesman, Roosevelt's most theatrical year was the presidential campaign of 1912. First he created the Bull Moose party, and you couldn't come up with a more memorable name. That fall, he was shot on his way to deliver a speech. He gave the 90-minute speech anyway, saying: "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose."

FDR's Fireside Chats

The radio broadcasts were a way of using rhetoric to unite and calm a nation distraught over the Great Depression. In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave the first of 30 such talks, delivered in an informal ("fireside") environment directly to the citizenry. The first of these addressed the banking crisis. "Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan," Roosevelt said. "You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system, and it is up to you to support and make it work."

Harry S. Truman: The Whistle-Stop Tour

Think of it as the perfect political road show. In 1948, the incumbent president traveled the country with his own stage, the back of a train named The Magellan. From there, he gave up to eight speeches a day and crossed 30,000 miles. He controlled the image and the message, and the audiences turned out by the thousands.

Nixon and his dog Checkers

In 1952, Richard M. Nixon proved himself a political fighter when he used the new medium of television to defend himself against accusations of taking gifts from Republican supporters. The total was $18,000, which today seems kind of cute. Nixon used the occasion to create the character description he'd draw upon for the rest of his career: the working-class, sweat-of-his-brow, unfairly picked-on victim. He goes for the tear ducts with the tale of Checkers, a cocker spaniel he accepted from a supporter. "And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it," he said in the most memorable line.

HUAC and the McCarthy Hearings

The House Un-American Activities Committee, founded in 1938, hit its stride in the late '40s and early '50s. What made it theatrical? To begin with, the stage, where witnesses were questioned in front of a board of accusatory committee members. Then there was the legion of celebrities dragged in (from Charlie Chaplin to Bertolt Brecht), lending glamour and fear. In the early 1950s, Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy led the Senate subcommittee, which became the first committee with televised proceedings. The most memorable dramatic moment came in 1954 during the Army-McCarthy hearings, when Army attorney Joseph Welch demanded of McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?"

"I Have a Dream"

We will always remember the melodious, commanding voice of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. - and the words. But the impact of the 1963 March on Washington was more than what is arguably one of the greatest speeches in American history. It was the visual: King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the Great Emancipator behind him, and in front of him 200,000 people, a quarter of them white, joined together. The speech was a mix of the prosaic ("America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come marked 'insufficient funds' ") and the grand, a rhythmic, stirring repetition that peaks with "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Berlin

The city has been the setting for three memorable visits by American politicians.

* 1963: Two years after the city had been divided in two overnight, John F. Kennedy gave a speech best known for the phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I am a Berliner"). It was also a carefully staged moment drawing a reported 750,000 listeners. Maybe catharsis is a stretch, but it went a long way toward showing that Kennedy - to quote a later prez - felt their pain.

* 1987: President Ronald Reagan stands at the Brandenburg Gate, evoking Kennedy's visit and taking another vocal anti-Soviet stance: "As long as this gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind." He ended with the now-famed "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

* 2008: Sen. Barack Obama visits Berlin at a time when American voters realize how far their country's international reputation has fallen. The sight of a mere candidate drawing 200,000 in Berlin is an icon-making moment. The imagery has been used more often by John McCain's campaign in an effort to put a negative spin on his opponent's fame.

Chicago 1968

They may not have invented street theater, but protesters made it indelible in the city's parks, where the cry went up "The whole world is watching!" It got its start with the Yippies in '67, promising to levitate the Pentagon and sticking daisies in National Guard rifles. By the Democratic Convention, there were costumes (Hubert Humphrey and gas masks), props (signs and flowers), music and a veritable chorus line of cops and Guardsmen. But that wasn't stage combat the authorities were administering.

Miss America Pageant

The male-dominated Yippies weren't the only ones with showmanship in 1968. That year, the New York Radical Women organized a protest of the Miss America pageant. That September, more than 400 women paraded in Atlantic City. They brought a "Freedom Trash Can" into which went the trappings of femininity: cosmetics, high heels, ladies' magazines and bras. A live sheep was crowned Miss America. Some women wore masks; others mopped the boardwalk. It was a ready-made spectacle, and the audience (the press) lapped it up.

Sax appeal

Everyone has fallen for a musician onstage, but for a politician to take it on is a tricky gamble. It could be the inharmonious equivalent of Michael Dukakis in a tank. So Bill Clinton's achievement was impressive as he stood onstage at The Arsenio Hall Show and played God Bless the Child on the saxophone. The song choice: Perfect. The blue backlighting: Flattering. Staying in tune: A really good idea. His self-deprecating, mildly cool banter helped his image. Five months later he won the election, and ushered in the era of politicians campaigning on pop-culture TV shows.

Comments

  • August 23, 2008

    7:43 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    JohnSWren writes:

    Make your own political history! Join us at the new Denver Speakers Corner. We meet each Sunday, 4 p.m., Civic Center, North Pavilion on Colfax, just across the street from the Denver Newspaper Agency. More info and optional RSVP at http://cocacop.meetup.com/2

    There was a great story about us last Monday here in the Rocky:
    http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news...

    Hope you can join us! We'll be shooting a video of each session and posting it on You Tube.

  • August 24, 2008

    6:45 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Brix57 writes:

    Are we all that stupid? High theater has it's great moments, but, that is all it is, a great moment.
    B.O. going to Berlin? He didn't serve in the military there, did he ever? J.M. served, not there, but did he really learn what war is about and sending the young in his place now? War is made by the old MEN and fought by the young, while the mothers grieve.
    These moments are only made by the media, which has seen that it will be replaced by something much more immediate. Gone are their days of screaming "free press" when they have shown that they are not free by limiting what their readers would have access to.