Presidential campaigns say as much about U.S. culture as candidates

ANN ARBOR-American presidential campaigns provide a unique window into our society, according to a University of Michigan anthropologist. "It says a lot about our culture that we pay so much attention to the clothing, gestures and hair styles of presidential candidates and to their performances in highly theatrical situations, like debates," said Michael Lempert, a linguistic anthropologist at the U-M. Lempert is the co-author with University of Chicago anthropologist Michael Silverstein of "Creatures of Politics: Media, Message, and the American Presidency," just published by Indiana University Press. In the book, they dissect the construction and presentation of a presidential candidate's "message"-revealed through a carefully choreographed persona composed of appearance, style of speech, gesture and publicly packaged biography, which are as influential as what the candidate actually says. Lempert and Silverstein see the public fascination with this "message" as a variation of the predatory voyeurism that characterizes our culture's obsession with celebrities. "It's really the 'TMZ-ization' of politics," Lempert said."We've become habituated to this. Basically, we've come to rely on the characterizations of candidates that this system has invented to help us make sense of which candidates we should support." "As a society, we know that this is happening and that it's now the norm," Silverstein said.