DONTRUMP

Techno Politics

John Allen Hendricks and Lynda Lee Kaid, eds., Techno Politics in Presidential Campaigning: New Voices, New Technologies, and New Voters (Routledge, 2010).

Confessional Politics

Bryan T. Kaylor, Presidential Campaign Rhetoric in an Age of Confessional Politics (Lexington Books, 2011).

from the publisher:

"When a Bible-quoting Sunday School teacher, Jimmy Carter, won the 1976 presidential election, it marked the start of a new era of presidential campaign discourse. The successful candidates since then have followed Carter's lead in publicly testifying about their personal religious beliefs and invoking God to justify their public policy positions and their political visions. With this new confessional political style, the candidates have repudiated the former perspective of a civil-religious contract that kept political leaders from being too religious and religious leaders from being too political. Presidential Campaign Rhetoric in the Age of Confessional Politics analyzes the religious-political discourse used by presidential nominees from 1976-2008, and then describes key characteristics of their confessional rhetoric that represent a substantial shift from the tenets of the civil-religious contract. This new confessional political style is characterized by religious-political rhetoric that is testimonial, partisan, sectarian, and liturgical in nature. In order to understand why candidates have radically adjusted their God talk on the campaign trail, important religious-political shifts in American society since the 1950s are examined, which demonstrate the rhetorical demands evangelical religious leaders have placed upon our would-be national leaders. Brian T. Kaylor utilizes Michel Foucault's work on the confession_with theoretical adjustments_to critique the significant problems of the confessional political era. With clear analyses and unsettling relevance, Kaylor's critique of contemporary political discourse will rouse the interest and concern of engaged citizens everywhere."

Design for Hard Times

from the New York Times:

DURING the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s choice of Gotham — an elegant 21st-century font — for his campaign signage was praised by graphic designers for its modernity and implicit message of change. Critics derided John McCain’s font, Optima, which was developed in the 1950s, and recalled the printing on a remedy for gastric distress. . . .

Kate Murphy, "The Candidate Is Not My Type," New York Times, 29 October 2010.

~ O ~

Steven Heller interviews Sol Sender, designer of the "O" sign, in the New York Times, 20 November 2008.

Q: What were you thinking when you conceived this idea?

A: When we received the assignment, we immediately read both of Senator Obama’s books. We were struck by the ideas of hope, change and a new perspective on red and blue (not red and blue states, but one country). There was also a strong sense, from the start, that his campaign represented something entirely new in American politics — “a new day,” so to speak.

Obama campaign logos can be downloaded from the campaign web site. Sol Sender comments that one of the advantages of a good logo design is that it can be adapted to a variety of uses -- here are some examples from the Obama campaign site. I suppose seeing all these images together, and there are still others, gives some sense of the targeted campaigning, and the possibly fragmented result, of modern campaigning. On the other hand, there is a latent appeal here for convergence and perhaps unity, since these images are not solely appeals from the campaign to its audiences, but also images that can be downloaded or purchased, and then displayed on windows, car bumpers, tee shirts, and so on, so that the message seems to be going not simply CAMPAIGN--> VOTER but VOTER--> VOTER.

The voter-to-voter effect is perhaps given more power not only by the sophisticated design, but also by the sense that many others are sharing the same appeal. On the other hand, the sense that this is part of a much larger movement may be for some viewers dimished by the sense that the grass roots may instead be made of astroturf.