[PEN-L:30611] Re: Personalities and the List

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Perelman wrote:

> How is it that so much of modern political discourse concerns
> personalities?

Well there's the media, which thrives on them, and they set a good
bit of the agenda, or at least what people think and talk about. U.S.
politics has long turned on personalities, though - 19th century
presidential campaigns were full of mudslinging and hero manufacture.
Also in the U.S., our main politicians agree on so much, as do
journalists, that horse race and personality issues dominate. It's
amazing to see Daschle complain that Bush is politicizing the war, as
if war weren't political. But I guess he means injecting it into the
partisan marketing campaign, which always puts the sissy Dems at a
disadvantage.

Doug