The folksy talk of "Main Street, USA" is in no way a surprising theme in presidential elections. Candidates of all stripes, determined to connect with average Americans, invoke a myriad of clichéd Americana even trotting out a middle-aged out-of-work so-and-so at every campaign stop, who happens to have an incredibly practiced personal narrative to share and a miscellaneous down home accent to go with it. These people serve as surrogates invoking a normalcy that presidential hopefuls can't have, as they have most likely spent their lives either in prep schools or working their less privileged asses off in order to attend a top law school, then in various state houses and then, ideally, getting to know how government actually works in Washington, DC. They desperately need you, the populace, to identify with their carefully selected surrogates and they need you to do it quickly and definitively. This concept has been taken to its most absurd turn with the current presidential race, as Governor Sarah Palin makes near constant references to “Joe-Six-Packs” and “Hockey Moms”.
Since I initially decided to write on this topic, the subject of a certain Joe so-and-so has ballooned to degree of absurdity beyond my wildest expectations. Something about hearing Governor Palin in the Vice-Presidential debate repeatedly calling out to her audience, the person watching her at home on the TV as “Joe Six-Pack”, struck me as very peculiar. First of all, it seemed an odd choice of words; essentially, calling ones audience by a derogatory name. But there was something else that made it feel even more inappropriate in this context. Why was this term was so familiar and yet wrong? Then I remembered, its a television industry term used to describe a marketing demographic. Use of this term betrays the humility it is meant to bestow on Governor Palin, because it is language of a marketing strategy rather than an actual down-home turn of phrase. Peggy Noonan described Palin’s entire performance as “an infomercial pitch for charm in politics” transparent yet effective. Noonan asks, at what point “shiny, happy populism becomes cheerful manipulation.”1 For me this indicated a fascinating breakdown of the communication structure, where the seams of this shiny, happy populism are ripped and the strategic manipulation beneath is revealed.
Interesting to read the historical antecedents. Of course, anything like this reminds me of the book we had to read in high school, Vance Packard's Hidden Persuaders. It was so eye-opening that I remember it to this day. Will there be a change in personal perceptions because these terms are used so frequently? Will people be happy to be "Joe-six-pack?"
Posted by: Mim | October 22, 2008 at 09:24 AM