Politics has become as grounded in passive-engagement communications as the marketing of consumer products is.

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Once the power of passive engagement communications was demonstrated, it was virtually inevitable that it would be picked up in areas of endeavor beyond the hawking of consumer goods.  Before long, political communications also found themselves transformed by techniques of passive-engagement communications.

Politicians have, of course, always made a certain amount of use of visual symbols.  We thus have a standard image of the stereotypical Senator Snort being photographed successively in a farmer's straw hat, a fireman's helmet, and an Indian chief's headdress. 

But more recent trends have elevated these techniques and their derivatives from mere incidental gimmickry to the central thrust of mainstream political campaigns.

(c) COPYRIGHT 1998 ROBERT WINTER.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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More Specifics

	The rise of national and instantaneous news media deprived political candidates of a chance to communicate substantively.
	Jimmy Carter's first campaign was heavily symbolic, although somewhat inadvertently.
	Ronald Reagan showed how to more deliberately apply the techniques of passive-engagement communications to politics.
	Reagan's political communication techniques have become the standard.