综合教程 第四册unit7.docVIP

1. What do you think is the most important political event in the U.S.? ? 2. How often is the presidential election held in the States? ? 3. What does selling in the title tell you? ??? Back in the 1960s, when the role of advertising and PR in politics first became apparent, Life magazine quoted one campaign strategist as saying, I can elect any person to office if he has $60,000, an IQ of at least 120, and can keep his mouth shut. Since the 1896 campaign, the election of a President has been determined largely by the ability of information specialists to generate favorable publicity. In recent years that publicity has been supplanted by heavy spot buying on electronic media. ??? So many factors are involved in choosing a President that it is hard to say with any real empirical confidence how important any single medium is. The most talked-about medium in American politics is television. Highly publicized debates between candidates in 1960, 1976, and 1980 appear to have affected the outcomes. Richard Nixon (the early favorite) would probably not have lost to Kennedy were it not for his poor showing on TV. Similarly the 1976 debates probably clinched Jimmy Carters narrow victory over Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan appeared to be the victor in the 1980 debates. ??? Yet there were other elections where, according to political analyst Edward Chester, no amount of TV exposure could have changed the outcome: Goldwater versus Johnson in 1964 and Nixon versus McGovern in 1972. Television commercials seem to work best in close elections or in those where there is a large undecided vote. According to the Associated Press, Fords TV spots during the 1976 campaign probably swung over 100,000 undecided voters a day during the last few months of the campaign. ??? What effect does television have on the candidates themselves? It dictates priorities that are different from those of an earlier day. The physical appearance of the candidate is increasingly important. Does he or she loo