Spots Electorales. El espectáculo de la democracia - Soymenos.net

Campaign Diary Roberto AlfaCampaign Diary Roberto Alfa56 57Day 2The gasping of political marketingDay 3Charisma, leadership and natural selectionToday, I don’t know how, I found I washaranguing the entire production team.Yesterday a poll came out which wasn’t thatgood for us. As I was talking and my voicegot louder, I realised that I was behaving likea candidate with those damned tics whichI so love and hate at the same time. Doesn’tmatter. The point is that some of the membersof the team said we had to add new argumentsto the campaign to nuance it more. Isaid absolutely no way. Everything is based onrepeating the same thing over and over againuntil the slogan sticks to people like glue. I’vealways wanted to run a campaign like theones in lots of countries throughout the Americas:catchy songs, rhythms and jingles withno more than a couple of lines and which arealso repeated on the screen like in karaoke. Ican’t do that here. They’d call me a populist.Populist… When the day finishes some timein the early morning, words are pullulatingin my stomach like when I was a kid and Irepeated them over and over again to makethem lose their meaning. Populist is one ofthem. I remember when I was a student how Iwas impressed by something said by a Dadaist:“The damned tongue, stuck to dirt like inthe hands of money changers who have beenfingering coins.” We’re not going to changea comma in the script. There are three ideas.When they’re dirty from being fingered somuch, when even our people are sick to deathof hearing them, then will be the time.Political marketing can be seen as a set of research, planningand communication techniques which are used tomap out strategic actions and tactics throughout a politicalcampaign. In principle it seems inadequate to use theidea of marketing, combined with other concepts such asmarket, product, sale, consumer, profit, etc., in a spheresuch as politics, which appears to belong to anotherkind of phenomena. Nevertheless, and this is becomingincreasingly apparent, some aspects of political life canbe approached using ideas that are analogous to thoseto be found in economics. Thus meeting a need (part ofthe logic of the market) can be equated with choosingan alternative (as occurs in politics). But even thoughthe strategies, tactics and techniques have a defi nitiverole in this sophisticated machine, there is alsoa need for other more stimulating incentives, usuallybranded as populist.In the sphere of political marketing, the election ad isheard as a polyphonic gasp, like a choir of sirens. It is ashameless cry of pleasure or a disproportionate ejection.The pornography promoted with the ad calls for terse andpenetrative arguments, and in this respect the ad is apowerful reason for excitement and passion.A guy has been on telly who says that thereare biological reasons for political charisma;that the hormones, neurones and what haveyou make up 35% of the raw material of asuccessful politician. It’s enough to make youpiss yourself. I’ll always remember what thatArgentinean politician told me, the nightI won the election for him: “Roberto, thosewho think the world is not a conspiracy areextremely badly informed.” He was one of thefew politicians I’ve come across who deservedmy respect. I read a short while ago that whenlanguage is placed at the service of war “itrenders people unfeeling and empties theimagination, thus allowing the conflict tobreak out.” More fuel to the flames.I really think that people vote because politicsdoesn’t affect them. Politics is seen as somethingpositive when it doesn’t create problemsand negative when it interferes in people’s lives.Bit of a paradox. If it affected people, they’d allbe out in the streets protesting. People vote becauseit’s a game, an anonymous bet for whichyou have absolutely no responsibility.“Hormones, neurotransmitters, neurones and, of course,physical appearance are biological factors which mayaccount for up to 35% of the raw material of a politicianwho reaches the top of the greasy pole,” says Catalanpsychiatrist Adolf Tobeña. “Dominant, cruel, persuasiveand manipulative individuals are ideal for the strugglefor power and these attributes depend on the neuronalcircuit and hormonal influences,” he argues in his mostrecent book Mind and Power. There is no doubt thatAlfa refers to this book in his ironical allusion.This news item, which appeared in the newspaper ElMundo on 21 February 2008, broaches the delicatequestion of biological predetermination in politicalleadership. While the thorny side of the issue may leadto initial rejection, what is true is that when we say“politicians are made of different stuff” we are sayingsomething very similar to what Tobeña asserts inhis book. However, it is also the case that the popularstatement would appear to refer to other issues thathave more to do with the prestige of the political class,said to be in ruins for decades and in permanent rehabilitation.This rehabilitation has been taking placesince the entry into political life of certain politicians,whose presentation often leads to the appearance of“regeneration”, “bringing a breath of fresh air” or “honesty”,as if this quality were an extra value in publicadministration.The trivialisation of news and politics along with makingthem into a spectacle has placed more emphasison individuals, on the battle between public figures,and has consequently tended to cover up social andstructural problems. The main consideration for teamsof election advisers thus becomes the way in which thecandidate they happen to be working for appears in themedia. This leads to the fragmentation and simplificationof events for which the politicians offer radical andsimplistic solutions and there is no capability to evaluateor qualify their efficacy. Everything is subjected to therhythm of television and the standing of the candidate’simage instead of to the time required to solve the problemsand the management ability required to do that.