“This is the lesson of all great television commercials: They provide a slogan, a symbol or a focus that creates for viewers a comprehensive and compelling image of themselves. In the shift from party politics to television politics, the same goal is sought. We are not permitted to know who is best at being President or Governor or Senator, but whose image is best in touching and soothing the deep reaches of our discontent” (Postman 134).
1) $ Barack Obama Had Connections to BIG MONEY
Barack Obama had many connections to people with big money in the media and elsewhere which was necessary for a strong campaign. This fact was not portrayed in the media but they did acknowledge the fact that he refused donations from corporate lobbyists and PACS. “Mainstream US media, while dismissing Edwards’ supposedly false populism and portraying Hillary Clinton as the candidate with connections to big money, largely ignored this angle of the Obama Story” (Street 13). This quote comes from Paul Street’s book, Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics. Obama continued to denounce accepting money from lobbyists but at the same time, he had become a millionaire and was purchasing a mansion. He was getting money from many rich and powerful contributors such as Goldman Sachs and Exelon Corporation.
Obama’s Supporters in the 2008 Cycle
Image from <http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00009638>
This shows the supporters and how much money they raised. (The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates. {From Opensecrets.org})
Here is an article that goes further into explain how 90% of Obama’s inauguration donations are from wall street.
2) Obama was the first candidate to utilize social media to win a campaign.
In the past few years social media has become to go-to method for most brands in America who are looking to build a more direct connection with their consumers. This is not any different than how Obama sold himself to Americans. He used social media in the same way any other brand would, to get his messages directly to his fans.
Barack utilized Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube among other programs to bypass the media and connect with an internet based audience. This article shows how Obama successful used these tools to win the 2008 elections. Paul Street, the author of Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics talks about this phenomenon in his book. “"Brand Obama’s” pure media-created celebrity-hood has been a major factor in his ascendancy, particularly with regard to younger voters” (Street 169).
3) Obama’s image in the media was largely concerned with portraying an ordinary, all-American, family man.
In order to win the US vote it is important for candidates to connect with the citizen and give them the “warm-fuzzies”. People want to feel like the person who is running our country and making huge decisions is a good person with a strong heart and Obama’s family was a key ingredient for putting together that image. He was always surrounded by them and they joined him during the campaign trail, looking happy and supportive and full of smiles.
Neil Postman, in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death; Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, talks of how photography tells people the truth about a subject, or at least that is the way it seems. In the case of politics, its more likely that photography is used to show what they WANT you to see, not what is truly there. “The new imagery, with photography at its forefront, did not merely function as a supplement to language, but bid to replace it as our dominant means for construing, understanding, and testing reality…For countless Americans, seeing, not reading, became the basis for believing” (Postman 74).
<Image from http://www.bittenandbound.com/2009/01/04/the-obamas-have-arrived-in-washington-dc/>
4) Voter’s may have sipped the Obama cool-aid and did not consider the real issues.
In reading about Obama and the election process, I learned that a lot of people who supported him did it for various reasons which were not necessarily his stances on American politics. Some supported him for the ideal of him being the first black president in America or because he seemed younger and fresher than the other candidates. Paul Street states in his book that, “Obama’s technical nonwhiteness and vaguely Islamic-sounding name (Barack Hussein Obama) would prove highly useful in repairing America’s relationships with the rest of the world” (Street 135). This was a strong belief across America, people though that we would prove something to the world by electing a black man as President.
This video shows how Obama uses this idea to persuade people. It can be taken by what he says that if he becomes president, he won’t only help America, but he will help the entire world. Good luck to him on that one, we have a lot of problems.
5) A majority of the media we receive is controlled by a small percentage of the population, and it seems they supported Obama.
A quote from Media/Society: Industries, Images and Audiences by David Croteau and William Hoynes describes the ownership of the US media, what we see and here on the television, newspapers and radio, and how it is manipulated to support a small group of peoples opinions. “White, middle- and upper-class men have historically controlled the medias industry, and media content has largely reflected their perspectives on the world” (Croteau, Hoynes 195). This explains in many ways why the media covers certain stories and not others which often happens in US coverage of world events.
In Obama’s case, this worked to his advantage, he managed to make strong connections with people involved in the media and in doing so, he got a lot more positive press than his contenders for the US presidency. In a study done by the Center for Media and Public Affairs it was found that, “ABC recorded 57 percent favorable comments toward the Democrats, and 42 percent positive for the Republicans. NBC had 56 percent positive for the Democrats, 16 percent for the Republicans. CBS had 73 percent positive (Obama), versus 31 percent (McCain).” {From http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D945SHBG1&show_article=1}
This shows how the media put Obama in a good light more often then the other candidates and since Americans get a majority of their news from television, it is not surprising he won the election.
6) As Neil Postman describes, we have lost our attention spans and debates have now been turned into entertainment where we focus on “likability” not the issues.
For many people, watching a debate on television really has nothing to do with what the candidates are saying, because how much can really be said in 1 minute snippets of information? Many Americans don’t like politics because it is challenging to understand all of the issues, or to be passionate about things that feel out of control, so we have simply made the elections into popularity contests, like any other reality TV show.
<Image from http://veggierevolution.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html>
As Neil Postman describes how telegraphy changed the information we receive and what that has done to the quality of information, it remains the same for the television and internet generations. “Telegraphy made relevance irrelevant. The abundant flow of information had very little or nothing to do with those to whom it was addressed; that is, with any social or intellectual context in which their lives were embedded” (Postman 67).
This video shows how much we focus on tone and behavior over content and actual experience. The students do a good job of seeing both sides of her campaign but the best quote I heard was “she reminds me a teacher from grade school, a really angry teacher.” It really is about behavior and the gut feelings we get from their speeches not necessarily what they are saying.
7) Obama inspired the Millennial Generation to get involved in politics
Going off the last idea, a huge part of Obama’s support came from the 20-something, college demographic and he did a good job of connecting with this group. Besides his huge social media influence that I discussed above, he managed to make a group of individuals feel like they were important and their opinions mattered.
In Paul Street’s book, a staffer was quoted as saying “Oh, you can’t talk policy and issues with the Obama people. Don’t even try. There is no discussion with them. They already know everything”(Street 135). I don’t necessarily agree with it completely but I think it is important to note that for the Millennial generation it was the first time that many of them took the time to know the politics and could engage in intellectual conversations with other older adults. I think Obama empowered this generation to feel they could share what they knew!
This video also shows that Obama did what he could to engage with the demographic, by using interests that they had, such as late night TV shows, interviews in popular magazines and online content he was able to get them interested in politics.
8) American were Excited for Someone New and Fresh
Obama was the answer to Americans desire for something new and entertaining. John Kerry was quoted in Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics as saying, “Americans are hungry for a directness and freshness that speaks to the public fatigue with politics as usual” (Street 170). He was different from other politicians we had seen and that made people sit up and notice. He was bi-racial, grew up in Hawaii, had a different sounding name but was also articulate and Harvard educated. He stood out because he was handsome and well-spoken and he had that smile 
9) Obama was shown as almost God-like in many media outlets; he was the “Americas Savior”
I discussed before how the media put more positive coverage of Obama then the other candidates, but I did not mention the way Americans began to treat him as a god-like image. “As Xenophanes remarked twenty-five centuries ago, men always make their gods in their own image. But to this, television politics has added a new wrinkle: Those who would be gods refashion themselves into images the viewers would have them be” (Postman 135). This quote really speaks as to what American media did in this case. I don’t think before this election we ever had rock stars making music videos to show their support such as thing one below.
Then there was the magazine covers, such as this Newsweek cover with the caption “God of All Things”!
And of course there is always the way Rolling Stone portrayed him in a Superhero-like cover.
With all of this media portrayal of him as a superhero, its no wonder peoples hopes will eventually be let down. He did go into office with a lot of huge problems to fix and he is only human, even if the media doesn’t think so.
10) Many Americans assumed things about Obama’s ideas that he neither confirmed or denied during the elections, such as what he would do about Iraq and Guantanamo Bay
“As of late February 2008, Democratic voters commonly believed that Obama was promising a quick and complete withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq. But in actual fact…the most Obama actually pledges was “to try to remove all combat brigades within 16 to 18 months”” (Street 144). This quote from Street’s Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics shows how the media and Americans misrepresented what Obama actually said, to mean very different things. Many people believe he made promises to do this these things the moment he stepped into the office, when in fact he knew that was not completely possible.
This video, from Barack Obama’s YouTube channel, is an example of Obama’s opinions on the war over the years and how he has opposed it. It is not realistic to think we could have pulled out from Iraq as soon as he was elected but I think at least he admits it’s a frustrating situation and is doing what he can to make those changes.
