Whether driving down the street, watching TV, or using the Internet, people don’t have to work very hard to find companies clawing for their attention. Billboards, commercials, and online promotions invade the lives of people every day to a degree that, often, we hardly even notice. It’s a part of life.
While millions of companies spend lots of money on advertising, there is no attempt that matches the effort involved in the modern political campaign to capture attention and to persuade potential voters. Practically speaking, it’s the hallmark of an advertising effort. While some might assume that this development of advertising intensity is simply the result of developments in technology, there is a wide spectrum of reasons that political promotion wasn’t always a conventional idea.
A History of Political Campaign Philosophy
Almost nothing is less remarkable than a would-be President delivering a speech in front of large, enthusiastic crowds. That’s how things are. What other way could someone even run for the Presidency?
Today, we expect people who want to become President to come to us to ask for our vote. We expect them to tell us their views on issues and to persuade those faithful to them to get to the polls, while sometimes dissuading people of the validity of other candidates. Anyone who considers running for office knows today, too, that crossing the country is not only expected, but is virtually required of them. Candidates, after all, run for office, they don’t stand for it.
While these things seems self evident to us today, the assumptions involved in campaigning in modern politics have radically diverged from the behavior that Americans expected from political candidates in years past.
Following the election of George Washington (who, upon being nominated, originally denied the position of President), the enduring norm was that the office of the U.S. President should not be sought or declined.
Part of the dignity and honor associated with the position of the United States President was that Presidents didn’t arrogantly posit they were good enough to be President, but were asked to run by many. The office sought the man, the man did not seek the office. Candidates were more or less nominated by those who knew them. In the past, Presidents didn’t campaign at all.
Candidates were assessed differently than they are today, too. Originally, candidates were simply assessed based on their character along with how they dealt with others and their responsibilities in the past. That stands in contrast to candidates today, who are analyzed based on a dynamic spectrum of intricate and specific issues. During the earlier years of the U.S. Presidency, being asked about specific issues was viewed as an intrusive request, but that began to change.
It wasn’t until 1824 that Andrew Jackson had a change of heart in his view of the proper responsibilities of political candidates. He declared to many that Americans deserved to know a candidate’s views on any political or national that the country has interest in. That was a bold statement in its time, and it began a push of the political M.O. in a way that it hadn’t been before.
Despite the idea running against the grain of its time, Jackson began transforming public interest. People no longer were content to generally assess a candidates character. They wanted an intricate understanding of their stance on issues. People had a growing demand ‘to know.’
It wasn’t until that year that candidates had a significant role in campaigning at all. Because it was considered arrogant to assume yourself to be fit to rule an entire country, political promotion was not done by the candidate themselves. It was mainly accomplished by newspapers, word of mouth, and posters created by citizens. Eventually, political parties assimilated and became involved, too.
The sparking desire for the public ‘to know’ led potential Presidents to become increasingly mobile to spread their message.
Whereas speaking in front of crowds would have previously been deemed “vote-begging,” it was increasingly commanded from Americans. So despite the increasingly controversial political environment, candidates began rallying for support anyway, speaking on front porches and occasionally traveling to share their beliefs. While it might be hard to imagine today, many Americans were horrified by this.
Some touted their stark disapproval of Presidential speeches saying things like, “the unwritten law of our country is that a candidate for President may not make speeches.” Another said, “things are proper now… that were never before.”
This final major change in American Presidential campaigning set the trajectory path for the future development of American politics. At this point, candidates began running for office based on their own wish to do so, they told others about their views on anything that was of public interest, and they were mobile.