Drop the Facade – The Mad, Bad and Goofy find political success online
This week the NYTimes featured an article about the amazing YouTube success of New Jersey governor Chris Christie. Christie is a blunt, overweight individual, and the more than 160 videos on his channel mostly feature him getting tough with impertinent questioners and giving strait talk to real people. This makes for a distinct contrast with the polished, warm and patriotic feeling that most politicians try to cultivate in their managed online media. The important thing here is, it works. with close to 800,000 views at the time the article was published, Christie is attracting lots of attention and seriously elevating his profile.
I have written before about the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and his rediculous public persona. The man was once fired from BBC radio for having an accent that was “too posh” and he continuous to be a flabbergasting anomaly to his political opponents who don’t understand how a man they view as a clown could have beaten serious politicians for the job. Once again though, the answer lay to a large extent with he very un-politician-like public persona he has created. After becomming one of the most popular guest stars ever ion the BBC comedy news Quiz Have I got News for You, he gained a national media profile that gave him the kind of name recognition that politicians salivate over.
Barack Obama – certainly Howard Dean as a precursor – even the absurd porn star who ran against David Vitter for the US Senate: people want to feel the authenticity of their elected leaders. It’s no fun to watch a poltician behaving like a politician on YouTube, in fact it’s lethally boring. It is fun to watch Barney Frank rip into a woman at a town hall meeting, comparing her conversationl style to a “dining room table” and questioning what planet she is living on.
Political types – take note. If Chris Christie has better name recognition than Tim Pawlenty when 2012 Presidential primary season rolls around, it won’t be because of their comparative merits on policy issues, but because a million viewers wanted to watch Christie trash someone on video…
