ABSTRACT
A recurrent and prominent theme of recent election cycles, on both sides of the Atlantic, has been the manufactured and purposefully shaped image of those standing for election. Both Prime Ministers and Presidents, of various parties and diverse political standpoints, have created or reshaped their image in modern times to attract voters from backgrounds of all dispositions and, when doing so, downplayed their own class and income positions. This has been undertaken through a variety of methods, from the use of mass advertising and the media, to the use of personal contact and meet-the-voter sessions. To accentuate the “regular” or ordinary attributes of the candidate, a manufactured position adopted by several candidates in the contemporary era has been a political background that contains a trying and troubled private life, a struggle to achieve in the political world on account of poverty or personal disruption, or that the candidate is simply an ordinary person or “regular guy.” The objective is to suppress perceptions of wealth and privilege, and exaggerate or fabricate a more salient and marketable political image designed to maximize voter appeal.
