Stand-Up Politics

Presidential comedy takes center stage.

Politics has always been about the subtle art of manipulating the zeitgeist and translating it into a language with the aesthetics of empiricism and the structure of deceit. The perks of making appealing claims greatly overshadow the moral benefits of making legitimate ones, and so the science of winning the hearts and votes of a people is severed from the science of running a government at the beginning of any contested campaign.

The implications of this in previous presidential campaigns have varied from the exploitation of paranoia (Lyndon Johnson’s “Daisy” ad) to the trendy optimism of the time (Ronald Reagan’s “It’s Morning Again in America” ad). The former encapsulated the national panic attack that was the Cold War, summed up in a minute, and the latter the relative calm of knowing that the worst of the storm was over. Campaign advertising, regardless of its veracity, gives future viewers a clear portrayal of the audience for which it was intended.

But if that is in fact true, what do Mike Huckabee’s “HuckChuck Facts” clips, by far the most memorable round of advertising for these elections, have to say about our generation? More importantly, what are future political scientists to make of the fact that those candidates who do attempt to reach their audiences through conventional, less frivolous manners — “Yes We Can” promos, for one — serve only as satire fodder for insidious clans of renegade Internet meme-sters nationwide (“Yes We Can Has”: lolcats for the Obama generation)?

The rise of comedy as the most viable campaigning tool in the wooing of the youth vote will be greeted by various classes of commentators as a notice of everything from the fall of the American empire to the new era of credibility unlike that known by our predecessors. The obvious conclusion to arrive at from the prominence of political humor this election season is least favorable to those consuming said humor: the new generation of voters needs to feel instantly gratified by listening to their possible leaders. Unless voters are falling off of their chairs in laughter within a minute or less, they’re voting for someone else. The McCain camp (average age: 340), would do well to heed the new paradigm. Their man continues to be a substitute for Ambien all along the campaign trail.

Others will argue that this behavior among youngsters is nothing new; it takes a certain level of maturity to comprehend the gravity of political decisions, and the 18-24 demographic doesn’t care to know, so the only way of communicating with them is the comedic route. The gaping hole in this argument is the lack of funny ads in the past. Surely this is either an idiosyncrasy of the generation or an idiosyncrasy of the era in which we live, that candidates designate this demographic “‘worth courting.”

That said, as an adherent to the first of the aforementioned conclusions, the very unique behavior of our generation appears crystal clear to me. While many that comprise the amorphous “youth vote” lean in a certain direction politically, their admiration for candidates with whom they disagree but whose personality they approve of brings an entirely new legitimacy to not taking oneself so seriously.

On our very own Obama-licious campus, for example, it is not uncommon to hear a member of SLAM or some other dangerously socialist organization say something like “Mike Huckabee as president would bring about the end of the world, but someone needs to give the man a TV show.”

Others with more moderate tendencies who emphasize levelheadedness as one of the most important traits they look for in a candidate express affection for the often unintentionally hilarious Congressman, Dr. Ron Paul.

It has become trendy to root for him as the ultimate underdog, but, more importantly, as the inspiration for the existence of an eponymous blimp that putters all over America and a legion of adoring fans whose favorite pastime is throwing snowballs at Sean Hannity. Contrast this election to 1968; none of the yippies that stormed that year’s Democratic convention did so because they found Eugene McCarthy particularly funny.

Thus, humor in this campaign is very much a double-edged sword, with the candidates electing which side to stab themselves with depending on how intentional they want their comedy to be. While it appears on television and in newspapers that the issues stand head and shoulders above any other sentimental factors in play, those involved in new media beg to differ. It is the entertainment of the campaign that brings young voters to the table, but only substantive political rhetoric that gets them to stay. “Yes I Can Has” references may make younger voters to read Wonkette more, but only what the original campaign slogan meant to them — whether that be anything from universal health care to a reformed education system — can get youth to vote on Election Day.

Frances Martel ’09 (fmartel@fas) can has political comedy.