Final paper John Horvath

Democracy and You

We are the BYSTANDERS ,and Obama, Clinton, and Grandpa McCain are the agents trying to appeal to us. So far there have been differing views from these politicians on how to handle America’s interest home and abroad. However, can every president, past and present, truly have a tight grasp on every issue? Some can't even open doors...

Lippmann doesn’t believe so. The point here is that successful politicians use a strategy to win over people’s interest and ultimately their vote. Instead of focusing and having a vast knowledge and influence (power) on one subject, they focus on key points of a subject hoping they hit key areas that a majority of people believe in and can relate to. For instance, both Clinton and Obama have a plan that ultimately revolves around withdrawing a

vast majority of troops and bringing a close to this “WAR.” McCain however, stated that it would be in America’s interest to stay in Iraq for various reasons. However, instead of saying he will "carry on the war" or better yet "carry on Bush's administrations potential blunder,"

he explained America would keep our presence in Iraq and take extra measures to reduce casualties and injuries. (video below) Interestingly, to back his point

, he noted that America has been in Japan and South Korea for many years. But is this really in America's best interest? If Iraq was on top of solid rock, would we really care about Iraq and its people? Is it truly a quest for democracy or is America in it for the oil? Isn't this rhetorical? My homeboy Ramage would be proud.

In response to the paragraph above, Lippmann would argue that people do not really care about politics because it does not directly affect us or spark our interest. In most scenarios, most would rather be watching American Idol.
Basically what Lippmann is saying is we the people are gullible, and rather than break down politicians views and plans, we carelessly vote for someone we feel we can associate with.

Even better, some Americans get their information about politicians from comedy shows that poke fun at politics. Not that there is anything wrong with this, but shouldn't we be listening to the candidates themselves if we really want to know what they stand for?

In a side note.......

It's funny, not even the Bush administration took close attention to who Colbert was. They thought he was a conservative. They could not have been more wrong. They were trashed at the 2006 White House Correspondents Speech.

So, in a sense, we are forfeiting our identity and voice. Lippmann’s argument may be stronger in this year’s election more than ever. This year, there is a African-American man and a woman running for the democratic nominee. Although not every black person in America, just like not every woman will vote for Obama or Clinton because of their exterior features, some may feel they can associate more with one candidate than the other.

This also relates to John Grandpa McCain. Although there is nothing new about an old white man running for president, he too has a large following. His following however seems to be his nursing home buddies. Rarely does one see a large following of college aged students at his rallies. It seems that at every speech or appearance, the majority of his supporters are people over 65. Why? Maybe because he represents the old America. The America that glorified its armed forced when it was the noble thing for every man and women to do when there county needed them. Not there is anything wrong with having your following be older people, but this again shows that people will associate themselves and sometimes vote for a candidate that they feel best associates with them. One guest on CNN (a female for McCain) believed some women will vote for McCain based on his war experience. She believed females feel more comfortable with a retired soldier to bring home victory.

Associating with a group or people is evident in the documentary The Persuaders. In one clip, it shows young people going to various households (particularly an elder lady in the segment) and showing them a video segment. The purpose of the segment is to spark the viewer’s interest of a specific topic and hopefully, lead the viewer to vote for a specific candidate. Luntz argues this is a direct attempt to find what interests people (us) and attack it to your (in this case the candidate's: the agent) advantage. The way to win in politics is not to debate their beliefs, but to decode what they believe in, and find a way to twist it to your advantage.

In this paper I tried to find reoccurring themes. The words and phrases highlighted in yellow represent us, the people, the bystanders according to Lippmann. Red symbolizes the politicians. The words in Blue symbolize the agents, the politicians can also fit into this category. Green represent what I thought were main ideas and themes in my paper.