One way to suggest the type of president that Obama is may be
explained by the advertising world. There's a different way that Mad Men may look at the Presidents. The Ad Men of
Manhattan would look at the last half century or so of Presidents and attach
labels to them based on their appeal to the American Public. They would be “Hot
and Cold”. The list is as follows:
- Kennedy: The first Television President...was Cool. Definitely Kennedy was cool. He was ultra-cool, a younger man’s president with young children. He appealed to women and knew the power of the new and all-powerful age of television. Indeed, he won the debate with Nixon through the appeal of his cooler look, as compared to Nixon’s “hot & sweaty” appearance. The adage- “Never Let ‘em see you sweat” was born with that debate. And through Kennedy’s tragic and untimely death, his image was further cemented in the public’s mind of a young man, never aging and always cool. This is borne out by the records of his deft handling of diplomacy during the Russian Missile Crisis.
2. Johnson: Johnson was a
Hot President. The pictures of him picking up his dogs by their ears
explains why. He was more of a populist in general, with much more in
common with the common man-hence the stories of him talking to reporters
even while he was using the bathroom! He wanted to connect viscerally with
the American Public and his failure in the later years of his Presidency came
down to his inability to connect with people, as the gruesome photos of
Vietnam were shown nightly and protestors were seen daily in front of the White
House. Johnson was hunkered down as if in a bunker, unable to connect with
the public.
3.Nixon: Cool. Presidents
both Hot & Cool may succeed in the office. But in Nixon’s case, his
general Cool personality sunk him in the eyes of the American press &
the public. He kept an enemies list and his mistrust of the media,
compounded with his general mistrust of almost everyone he worked with was
enough to sink his Presidency. His cool persona became seen as a cold,
calculating sort of distance from the American People, and in the end, his
own personality was what brought Nixon down. (**Ford was not elected-but
would be an extension of the Cool Nixonian White House)
4. Carter: Hot. One of the
hardest to categorize turned out to be Carter. Although he was a populist, a generally
Hot President who wanted to connect with the common man, to the point of
walking down Pennsylvania Avenue for his Inauguration, he was instead seen as weak and ineffectual. One of the reasons could have been the speech where he wore a
sweater and told Americans to turn up their thermostats to save
electricity. Because of this, in the end he could not connect with the American People. They saw him
as a kind of “scold-in chief”. Perhaps he was ahead
of his time in wanting to put solar panels on the White House residence.
Reagan promptly had them removed!
5. Reagan: Cool. Proof that
you may be a successful Cool or Hot President. You need to connect with
the American People and use your persona as Commander in Chief to convey
your message. Reagan knew how to use media and television as well as
Kennedy to convey a “folksy” sort of image that was not in line with his
much cooler personality. In reality, he was a bit aloof, a cool messenger,
but the American People saw the “Brand” that he sold-just as he sold detergent
decades ago on television!
6. Bush I : Cool. This time,
the cool personality worked against the image. Bush I was seen as aloof
and out of touch with the American Public. For example, he went through a
checkout line and was amazed to find out how groceries were scanned. He
was seen as out of touch and that was a fatal flaw. No amount of cute dog
pictures with Millie could save him.
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7. Clinton: Hot: Clinton
famously conveyed the message: “I feel your pain” This is a good way to
sum up the successful Hot President. He was able to make people think of
him as a “Good ol’ boy”, a moderate, not too liberal….and someone who
liked to eat at McDonald’s…Even the Monica Lewinsky scandal, in the end,
worked in his favor, as most Americans saw him as being persecuted by the
right rather than as a fatally flawed President.
8. Bush II: Hot-Bush was
successful for a time as a common man of the people. People wanted to have
a beer with him, and invite him to a barbeque. He conveyed strength and
Texas Good ol' boy charm. But the worm turned when he was seen as weak and
ineffectual after Hurricane Katrina. And when Iraq went sour, he was often
snarky with the press, who turned on him and his Presidency was finally determined
to be a failed one. Not all Hot Presidencies come to a good end.
9. Obama: Cool: Definitely
cool. The jury is still out on Obama, he has a couple of years left. He
was able to connect with the American People because of his laid-back,
cool “No Drama Obama” approach to foreign policy. That is the very thing
he is being lambasted for in the press now. It may turn out that history
judges Obama far less critically than he is being judged now. Time will
tell.
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Who is in line for the
next spot?.. Hillary, perhaps, as polls show her to be the front runner. It’s hard to tell whether she
would be a Hot President-like her husband Bill- or Cool, like Obama. There’s
a case to be made for both, but my feeling is she would be a Cool
President, one who connects with the media and conveys one image to the
world, while in reality, those who know her say she can be very warm and
caring.
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