Last night, all three of the remaining major presidential candidates made taped appearances on WWE Monday Night Raw.
*Silence*
*Uncomfortable pause*
*Crickets chirping*
I'm not sure that the above news item NEEDS commentary, but here it is anyway. The election of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was the first contentious, if not the first contested, presidential election. I was going to refer to this election as a "race", but that's not correct, and precisely my point. The presidency used to be something that people did not chase after, or at least did not openly chase after.
In America we refer to the process of seeking election to public posts as "running for office". This is a phrase the rest of the world would be unfamiliar with. In Great Britain, one "stands" for Parliament, and that sounds much more dignified than the ambulance chasing connotation "running" for office has.
For all of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, presidential candidates did not campaign in the traditional sense, because it was considered undignified. Abraham Lincoln did not even attend the Chicago convention that made him the Republican nominee for president. Forty six years later, although opposed for the presidency by a young, charismatic and articulate opponent named William Jennings Bryan, the Republican nominee William McKinley campaigned for president by literally sitting on his front porch.
The lure of the presidency gradually became too great for candidates to sit idly by as their campaigns were conducted without them. By the time John Kennedy and Richard Nixon opposed each other in 1960, campaigns had become tests of endurance, with the neverending travel and countless speeches and ads we are accustomed to today.
When James Madison's entire presidential campaign was a series of thoughtful letters to colleagues that were published in newspapers, one could reasonably expect that the electorate would make their choice based on issues. The absence of a circus-like atmosphere contributed to the sober nature of the election. And candidates who came into office without campaigning and bargaining for the office could presumably consider themselves free to serve the American people rather than their contributors.
I think considering the personality and temperament of a presidential candidate is a perfectly valid part of choosing whom to vote for. And there are no doubt venues in which voters could be allowed to see their candidates in a more personal way. But to have Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain on a WRESTLING PROGRAM? We have seen the President of the United States asked on national television whether he wears boxers or briefs. That same president, as the nominee of his party, played the saxophone on a late night television show.
Maybe this trend is not reversible. If that's the case, and presidential candidates are going to appear on entertainment shows, perhaps we could at least have them appear on the shows on which they belong. Allow me to make the first suggestion: Hillary on Desperate Housewives.
