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Faux authenticity
BY CAMILLE DODERO
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The point of America Rocks the Vote, a live 90-minute television show aired on CNN and filmed at Boston’s Faneuil Hall this past Tuesday night, naturally led to drinking. (The last question of the night: "If you could pick one of your fellow candidates to party with, which you would choose?" Kucinich picked Sharpton; Sharpton picked Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz; Kerry picked Sharpton so as to keep an eye on his wife.) "I don’t know if you all know, but there is actually a drinking game on some campuses during these debates," silver-haired CNN anchor Anderson Cooper told the eight candidates. "When you say your stock phrases, somebody downs a shot. Don’t want to encourage drinking on college campuses" — it’s a school night, he pointed out — "let’s try to keep things real." The idea of asking political candidates to keep it real for the kids is a tricky thing. Because what does "real" mean in the context of a demographic weaned on MTV’s The Real World? The question came up earlier in the day, during a press briefing across the street in a second-floor suite at the Millennium Hotel, when a panel of six — including Boston mayor Thomas Menino, CNN senior political correspondent Candy Crowley, and Rock the Vote executive director Jehmu Greene, all except MTV News correspondent Gideon Yago over 30 — tried to address the issue of how to reach young voters more effectively. (Hint: stop making political rhetoric so damn boring.) "Young people look for authenticity," said Ben Coes, former campaign manager for Governor Mitt Romney. Traditional forms of marketing and advertising aren’t working on this generation, he pointed out, because the younger generation responds to "authenticity." His example was a vodka company (he didn’t say which one) that recently hired hot models to order its brand loudly at bars. Surprise, surprise, sales skyrocketed. Why? Because the kids "want authenticity." Is paying beautiful people to purchase a product in public "authentic"? Course not. So when MTV’s Gideon Yago sharply suggested that what really resonates with 18-to-24-year-olds — a coddled demographic that’s used to having things hand-delivered — is "reality TV" and "unguarded moments," it was clear he didn’t mean realism in the traditional sense. His reference was to the pop-cultural denotation of faux reality conjured up by shows like American Idol and The Bachelor, in which "real people" who’re carefully screened by casting directors react to relatable circumstances. In other words, kids don’t mind if there’s a script, but they’re drawn to people who seem human and who aren’t reading from the teleprompter. But America Rocks the Vote might as well have allowed the candidates to read from teleprompters. "Unpredictable. Unscripted. Uncensored," promised the show’s tagline, but it wasn’t. Political candidates haven’t quite mastered the art of reaching the kids and speaking like they’re not yelping through a bullhorn. Or, for that matter, actually listening to questions and answering them without giving a bullshit response. A prime example: a young woman from California in the audience lobbed John Edwards a reasonable offer, essentially asking, I’m an undecided Democrat; what are you going to do to impress me? Here’s how he answered: "But the reason I’m the best candidate against George Bush is very simple. I come from middle-class working people. I grew up that way. I spent all of my adult life, first as a lawyer fighting for those people against big corporations, against big insurance companies. I fought the same fight on the floor of the United States Senate. It has been the cause of my life. I will wake up both as a nominee and as president of the United States every day standing up and fighting for you." Authentic? Um, no. Some audience members picked up on this. Will McDonough (no relation to the now-deceased legendary local sportswriter) asked Kerry to rethink Grady Little’s decision in game seven of the playoffs. In his classic fashion, Kerry rambled on about the afflictions of being a Red Sox fan and then — finally — said: "Like most of you here, I was throwing things at the television set, screaming at Grady Little, ‘Get him out of there. Get him out of there.’" Then he cheered the Marlins on for "the first legitimate victory out of Florida since 2000." "I was disappointed," said McDonough afterward. "They seemed like they already knew what they were going to say." Was he happy with Kerry’s response to his question? Nope. "He treated it like a baseball question. It wasn’t a baseball question — it was a leadership question. Shouldn’t a presidential candidate know the difference?"
ROCK THE VOTE BY THE NUMBERS Number of candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination who showed up for America Rocks the Vote: 8 (former Vermont governor Howard Dean; former ambassador and US senator Carol Moseley Braun; Senators Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, and John Kerry; Retired General Wesley Clark; the Reverend Al Sharpton, and Congressman Dennis Kucinich). Number of candidates (un)noticeably absent from the question-and-answer forum aimed at 18-to-30-year-old independents and Democrats: 1 (Congressman Richard Gephardt). Number of candidates who exceeded the 60-second time limit to answer questions: 8 (Dean, Moseley Braun, Lieberman, Clark, Edwards, Kerry, Sharpton, Kucinich). Number of candidates who said they preferred PCs to Macintosh computers: 4 (Dean, Moseley Braun, Edwards, Kucinich). Number of candidates who interpreted dressing down for the kids as looking like a priest without his collar: 2 (Clark, Kucinich). Number of candidates wearing corduroys: 1 (Kerry). Number of candidates who managed to compensate for their solemnity by name-dropping OutKast and Bill Clinton: 1 (Clark). Number of candidates admitting to having "used marijuana": 3 (Kerry, Edwards, Dean). Number of candidates declining to divulge their past history with pot: 1 (Moseley Braun). Number of candidates who nearly apologized for not having smoked herb: 1 (Lieberman). Number of times Grandpa Lieberman made everyone squirm: 4 (sputtering the word "condom" while fielding a question about sex education; sounding like a dirty old man while joking that he wanted to party with a girl in the audience; concluding a cheesy speech with a very uncool thumbs up; see above, when he seemed almost apologetic for not having smoked pot). Number of times Howard Dean looked incredibly pissed off while refusing to act contrite for saying he’d happily represent Confederate-flag wavers: 3.
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