Americans Vote For Obama’s Personality Instead Of His Policies

Barack Obama has not won over the American people through his political views, but instead by carefully constructing himself through media representations; The Obama brand demonstrates the power of political branding to distract voters from a critical analysis of Obama’s actual policies and positions. Paul Street’s book, Barack Obama And The Future Of American Politics portrays Obama in a negative light as it demonstrates to readers the issues that arise from the “Obama brand” that is created through the media and the corporate elite. The film The Obama Deception, directed by Alex Jones conveys similar messages to its viewers in terms of the president’s involvement with the corporate elite. It discusses whose interests Obama is really serving along with his true policies and positions, which depicts him negatively. Even when Obama is shown in a positive light in HBO’s documentary series By The People: The Election Of Barack Obama, it can still be demonstrated that he did not win the American people’s votes through his political policies and positions.


Paul Street demonstrates the power of the “Obama brand” and how it distracts American voters from a critical analysis of Obama’s actual policies and positions in his book Barack Obama And The Future Of American Politics. Street believes, “…the term “Obama Brand” suggested the commodified nature of a political culture that tends to reduce elections to corporate crafted marketing contests revolving around candidate images and characters packaged and sold by corporate consultants and public relations experts (Street 2). He calls attention to the issues of Obama’s political branding through the media such as corporate involvement, and the inability of Americans to elect a president specifically on his or her political policies. Street first explains that presidential candidates generally cannot succeed without the funding from concentrations of private power in America, which shows the continuing economic shift in the United States (Street 11). He demonstrates this through exploring Obama’s relationship with the Company Maytag’s director, Henry Crown. Maytag abandoned the working families in Galesburg Iowa with the company’s Galesburg shut down, which should have been something that was upsetting to Obama who proclaims himself to be serving the best interests of the average American, and not the large corporations. However this did not concern enough to push his elite political investor, Maytag director Henry Crown to do anything to avert the Galesburg shutdown, which demonstrates that securing his campaign finance tied to the crown family took precedence over serving Galesburg workers. This is due to the simple reason that one cannot run a possible presidential campaign without the election investments from wealthy and powerful interests like the crowns provide (Street 187). In this case the elite choose to fund campaigns that will benefit them and control public communications and culture in ways that set dangerously narrow and business-friendly parameters of acceptable debate (Street 11).


Croteau and Hoynes’s book Media and society shows how streets claims take place in terms of the elite controlling media to ensure the election of the candidate for their interests, and the issues that this causes. The book discusses how the widely adopted argument of media ownership becoming increasingly concentrated will ultimately lead to uniform media products that serve the interests of the increasingly small number of owners (Croteau/Hoynes 48). However this is a problem because Mass Media control what American’s know and how they learn this information. Croteau and Hoynes provide an understanding to why this is a problem when thinking about political debates. A political debate usually used to take place in a public forum where a crowd was physically present. But now most people watch them on their television alone, or with a small group of people. Because of this, “We view the debate through the lens of the media conveying it to us” (Croteau 6, 15-16). In other words the corporate view becomes the American view, even though the interests of the corporate entities that own mass media are far from universal (Croteau 50). This is dangerous to the American people as the elite can market the candidate serving their interests in way a that makes him or her seem to be serving the American people’s interests. Due to the corporate media’s political marketing manipulations the candidate serving them gets elected and puts the rest of the population at a dis-advantage. The “Obama Brand” involves the involvement of corporate political marketing, which is dangerous to the American people as the candidate whom they thought was working for them, is really serving the interests of the elite.


Street specifically discusses the “Obama brand” and how it distracts American voters from a critical analysis of Obama’s actual policies and positions through its political marketing. Most of political marketing does not involve conveying candidate’s political views, but instead it entails showing their personalities and making them likeable to the people. “Candidate fortunes rose and fell on campaign marketers success or failure—and corporate media’s messages on which of the two candidates was mean or nice; honest or deceptive; personally ambitious or socially committed; funny or humorless; tough or soft; self-assured or needy; positively connected to his or her spouse or not; likeable or disagreeable; calm or intense; balanced or neurotic; hip or square, and so on” (Street 66). Street demonstrates this concept of political marketing that directs people away from critical analysis of politics again when he explains that Obama scored very high among active voters on questions of personal character and attractiveness, which are questions that seem to have more impact on voters’ decisions than policy or ideological “issues” in a candidate and image- centered elections system and political culture (Street 166). This shows that Obama’s success did not involve around critical thinking and analysis on his political policies or stances, and instead the people were distracted by the Obama brand that preached hope and unity. Street reinforces this message when reflecting on the answer of a college student when he asked for her opinion on Obama. “Oh,” the young woman said, “he’s just so cool. He’s on Television all the time and he’s just really excellent. Nobody ever heard of him before and then boom—there he is like…I can listen to him all day” (Street 168). “He is really handsome another student chimed in” (Street 168). This brings many to the conclusion that “Brand Obama’s” pure media-created celebrity-hood has been a major factor in his ascendancy, particularly with regard to younger voters (Street 169).


The idea of the political marketing of the “Obama brand” turning the success of a campaign into something that is based on the celebrity hood of the candidate instead of politics is also demonstrated in Neil Postman’s, Amusing Ourselves To Death. Postman discusses how the television brings an in-justice to the people when it involves showing serious modes of discourse such as politics because it turns them into entertainment (Postman 159). He explains that this is because what is traditionally shown on the television is usually for amusement and is therefore associated with social culture, and not politics. He says, “Political figures show up anywhere, at any time, doing anything, without being thought odd, presumptuous, or in any way out of place. Which is to say, they have become assimilated into the general television culture as celebrities” (Postman 131-132). “Being a celebrity is quite different from being well known. Harry Truman was well known but he was not a celebrity. Whenever the public saw him or heard him, Truman was talking politics” (Postman 132). In other words whenever the people viewed Truman they would associate him with politics and because of this people only judged him based on his political policies and stands. However the television enabled politicians to be viewed outside of politics, which causes people to associate them in terms of their personal lives and political marketing is able to sell the American voter the candidate with the best personality. This is what occurred with the Obama brand as voters viewed him as a product that is outside of politics so the corporate media were able to market his personality and personal life to distract people from critical analysis of his political policies and stands. The functions of the television, which enable people to watch Obama anytime, anywhere, doing anything is demonstrated in M.T. Anderson’s Feed. In his book Anderson explores that idea of people having constant access to information through their feeds, which causes them to be bombarded with advertisements. When referring to the main characters going to the moon he said, “We flew up and our feeds were burbling all sorts of things about where to stay and what to eat. It sounded pretty fun, and at first their were lots of pictures of dancing and people with romper gills and metal wings…when we were flying over the surface of the moon itself…there is just the rockiness and the suckiness…” (Anderson 3-4). The characters in the film were always exposed to advertisements that tried to sell something due to the feed, just like how American voters were constantly able to see Obama everywhere from the television and therefore the corporate media was able to sell his personality constantly to distract people from critical analysis of his policies.




Obama’s connections with the corporate elite were also exposed in the film, The Obama Deception, where he is shown in a negative light. The film brings attention to important facts that have been overlooked by many Americans with the distraction of the “Obama brand” portrayed in the media controlled by corporate elites. These facts include whom Obama is really working for and his real agenda. The film demonstrates that Obama is not concerned with the best interests of the American people and instead is serving the corporate elite, as a face to distract and lead people into a new world order that places all of the power in a new world bank. Hip-hop artist, Professor Griff of Public Enemy especially highlights this when he said, “where did we get this sense that just because we have a black man as President everything is going to be ok…everything is NOT going to be ok” (The Obama Deception). He brings attention to the idea of the corporate moneymakers using Obama to distract Americans from their plan for a new world order through the media, his race, and rhetoric of hope which attracts a great deal of the voter’s attention. The film demonstrates the success of the elite in distracting the American people from thinking critically about Obama’s policies when it lists the people in his administration, and viewers are brought to the realization that the majority of his administration is made up of the corporate elite that are apart of groups such as the Bilderberg group and the Trilateral Commission, which both consist of the wealthiest people around the world. This means that the government’s policies are decided by these corporate elites, who are not concerned about the American people and are only working towards achieving their new world order.


Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff demonstrate the concept of Obama supporting the corporate elite and the fact that a great deal of his administration consists of the big business people he pledged where the problem in America’s economic crisis in the book Censored 2010. One section states, “a long thread of sociological research documents the existence of a dominant ruling class in the US, which sets policy and determines national political priorities. A global dominance agenda also includes penetration into the boardrooms of the corporate media in the US” (Phillips 203). The book confirms the messages in The Obama Deception film and goes on to explain that only 118 people comprised the membership on the boards of directors of the ten big media giants in 2006, which in turn all sat on the corporate boards of 288 national and international corporations. This demonstrates that big media in the United States effectively represent the interests of corporate America, as the media elite, a key component of the Higher Circle Policy Elite in the US, are the watchdogs of acceptable ideological messages, the controllers of news and information content, and the decision makers regarding media resources (Phillips 203). This enables the creation of the “Obama brand” that won American voters as Obama was marketed in a very positive light through the corporate media, which focused on his personality and diverted people from analyzing his politics.


Phillips and Huff go on to reinforce the fact that a great deal of Obama’s administration are members of the corporate elite when it says that he, “appointed no less than eleven members of the trilateral Commission to top-level and key positions in his Administration” (Phillips 203). The book even gives specific names of the elite who were involved with Obama. It said that during his presidential campaign Zbigniew Brzezinski, co founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973, was Obama’s principle foreign policy advisor (Phillips 287). This shows that Obama is working for the corporate elite and not the American people, which is very concerning when thinking about the future of America, and for that matter the world. What is even more concerning is that most Americans are unaware of this information due to the political marketing of the "Obama brand.” The marketing of Obama through the corporate media enabled the elite to control the information that the people receive and portray Obama in a positive light by placing most of the attention on his personal life. This distracted American voters from critical analysis on his political policies and stands, which led to Obama’s election and the power of the corporate media and elite without the people even knowing.


HBO’s film, By The People: The Election Of Barack Obama shows a very positive view on Obama, however it can still be seen that he did not win the votes of the American people through his political views and stands. Instead of discussing his political views the film focuses more of the power of Obama’s rhetoric as he speaks of hope, change, and unity. It shows crowds of people who were inspired by his words and the triumphs of his campaign, as it engages its viewers through the limbic brain and they are persuaded through the emotions, sounds, and images in the film. The film also shows what happens behind the scenes of Obama’s campaign by telling the story of the young Iowa Organizer, who lived in a car during the first few years of his life, and showing images of him calling his mother crying when Obama won the presidential election. The film is very convincing as Obama is seen as a guy with nothing not to like when thought about in terms of the limbic brain. But when viewing the film analytically and critically it is seen that Obama was not elected for his politics since it does not show any footage or information on his policies or where he got his funding for his campaign. This leads to understand how powerful the political marketing of the “Obama brand” is as the film shows how many of the people’s votes for Obama were determined by his image and personality.



Neil Postman discussed the power of the image in terms of politics in his book, Amusing Ourselves To Death. Postman talks about the idea that politicians have the ability to show, or market themselves in a way that is pleasing to voters rather than showing their true political policies that are either not a concern for the people or don’t go along with their beliefs. He said, “For on television the politician does not so much offer the audience an image of himself, as offer himself as an image of the audience” (Postman 134). This is true with Obama as the “Obama brand” kept Americans from seeing him for who he really was in terms of his politics, which support the corporate elite. Obama’s political marketing conveyed him in a way that the people wanted to see, which distracted them critical thought. The rhetoric that plays a large role in the image of the Obama brand speaks of hope, unity, and change was what the people wanted to hear in a time of crisis and economic collapse. However it proved to be very distracting as it kept them from thinking about the truth of his policies and political stands, which would bring about the complete opposite of what he preached. Postman highlights this concept when he says, “We are not determined 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 135). When thinking about this in terms of Obama it can be seen how his image and his rhetoric that shaped his image played a large part in his election. In a time of crisis the voters were ready for change and Obama’s image of an African American who spoke of hope was exactly what Americans were looking for to sooth their worries and answer their problems. Unfortunately they were distracted from seeing past the “Obama brand” and thinking critically about his political policies. Paul Street’s book, Barack Obama And The Future Of American Politics, and the film The Obama Deception both portray Obama in a negative light that demonstrates the notion of Obama’s election being determined over the political marketing of the “Obama brand.” Although the HBO film By The People: The Election Of Barack Obama shows Obama in a very positive light when viewed critically it can still be seen how he was not elected by his political policies and stands, which voters were distracted from due to the political marketing of the “Obama brand” that was demonstrated in the limbic brain engaging scenes of Obama’s personality and rhetoric that dominated the triumphs of his campaign.


References

Anderson, M. T. Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick, 2002. Print.

By The People: The Election Of Barack Obama. Dir. Amy Rice and Alicia Sams. A Green Film Company Presentation In Association with Citi Productions, 2009. Film.

Croteau, David, and William Hoynes. Media Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge, 2003. Print.

Phillips, Peter, and Mickey Huff, eds. Censored 2010 the Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008-09. New York: Seven Stories, 2009. Print.

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Obama Deception. Dir. Alex Jones. Alex Jones Productions, 2009. DVD.

Street, Paul Louis. Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics. Boulder: Paradigm, 2009. Print.