ABSTRACT
In the 2008 US presidential campaign, Barack Obama visited Europe to the adulation of large crowds, especially in Berlin, in July. On his return to the United States on 29 July, the McCain campaign team ran a 30-second advertisement juxtaposing the coverage of his Berlin visit, accompanied by chants of ‘Obama, Obama’, with images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, and a female voice-over saying: ‘He’s the biggest celebrity in the world . . . but is he ready to lead?’ The Republican strategist Steven Schmidt mobilized Boorstin’s celebrity/hero distinction, saying ‘Do the American people want to elect the world’s biggest celebrity or do they want to elect an American hero?’ (cited in Alexander 2010b: 414). As one Australian journalist put it, the 2008 election appeared to constitute ‘the triumph of celebrity as the essential organizing principle of US politics’, turning American politics into American Idol , with Bill Clinton as ‘the critical transitional fi gure who morphed from a traditional politician into a pure soap opera celebrity’. 1
At fi rst the comparison seemed misplaced and a bit silly, but then it appeared to gain some traction in public discussions, and the Democratic campaign became worried, as the Republicans had hoped, that framing Obama as a celebrity would dominate the public perception of his speech accepting his nomination as the Democratic party’s candidate for the presidency. In fact it did nothing of the sort, and it is hard to know how much damage it actually did to McCain, with
Paris Hilton producing some witty counter videos. Although it is true, as Jeffrey Alexander observes, that Americans are suspicious of celebrity (2010b: 415), they can also tell the difference between different foundations of celebrity. For Obama they include his skills as an orator and his capacity to connect emotionally with a sizable proportion of the American public. It was, after all, a bit rich for Ronald Reagan’s and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s party, not to mention Sarah Palin’s, to be complaining about the role of celebrity in politics. The McCain campaign in fact drew on similar strategies, organizing itself around the presentation of McCain as a war hero rather than an experienced legislator, and the vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a ‘hockey-mom’ and moose-hunter, rather than someone who could tell the difference between living in vague geographical proximity to a foreign country and actually having any diplomatic dealings with it.
