Irrefutable proof that U.S. politics is nothing more than a popularity contest

[Aoidoi]

All new candidates will take on aliases?

Carlos Danger was ahead of his time!

Censor their faces in public appearances?

I suggest we bleep their comments as well, just to be sure.

 

[Dr. Imago]

Have you actually compared their qualifications in detail?

Yes, have you? People are only talking about Clay Aiken so far on this thread, a 35-year-old pop star with fairly anodyne positions on current social issues. That's versus the state controller and business entrepreneur who understands government machinations, as well as having far greater life experience.

I ask again: who's ultimately better to represent the people of North Carolina?

~Dr. Imago

 

[Nova Land]

I'm sick and tired of people using their celebrity as some automatic imprimatur that they are qualified to run for office.

I dislike it too. I prefer candidates (such as Clay Aiken) who run on substance rather than on style.

I had no idea who Clay Aiken was or why you supposed him to be famous before reading this thread. And I learned nothing of his supposed fame from his 5-minute video explaining why he's running nor from his campaign website.

Here. This is the "About Clay Aiken" section of his website. It's 22 paragraphs long -- too long for me to quote in its entirety here, so I'm going to ask you to go to the site for yourself and read it. When you've done that please quote for me the parts where he uses his celebrity to win approval. (If you can't find anything like that in the "About Clay Aiken" section -- I know I couldn't -- please feel free to search the rest of the site to find any place where he uses his supposed celebrity as part of his campaign pitch.)

Here. This is the 5-minute video I posted earlier in which Aiken explains who he is and why he's running. Please look at it and quote for me the parts where he uses his celebrity to win approval.


Are these materials untypical? If you honestly believe that Aiken is using his supposed celebrity as a key part of his campaign, please find and quote for me the campaign ads, public speeches, or other instances you've found in which he does this.

Take your time. But until and unless you do provide evidence that Aiken is using celebrity to gain votes (which is what you've been claiming) rather than using his stands on the issues to gain votes (which is what I see in all his campaign materials I've seen so far) I'm going to go with the default position that your opinion is based on something other than evidence.

 

[Nova Land]

... I said he is going to win the primary due to his popularity, not his qualifications. If this was otherwise untrue, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

That's an interesting claim, that Aiken is going to win based on his popularity rather than his qualifications, since all his campaign materials seem to be based on his stands and his qualifications rather than on his popularity.

I suppose it's possible that the people are voting for him based on his supposed popularity (which he doesn't mention in any of the campaign materials I've seen) instead of on his stands and qualifications (which is what his campaign has focused on). Sounds rather strange, though. Do you have any evidence to support this notion of yours, or is it just something you assume must be true?

If you've got evidence to support your belief that people plan to vote for Aiken because of his having been a guest on a tv show some years back, rather than because of what he and his campaign are saying now, please provide it. Is there public opinion polling you've seen in which people who plan to vote for Aiken listed "popularity" rather than "stands on the issues" as the reason for their vote? Are there newspaper or television interviews you've seen with people saying the plan to vote for Aiken because he appeared on American Idol?

Again, there's no rush -- take your time in digging up evidence to support your claim. But until you can provide evidence that this is something other than your unsupported opinion, there is no good reason for me or anyone else reading this thread to give that opinion any weight.

 

[NoahFence]

Uggh... Again, not the point and not what I said. I said the other candidate is more qualified.

Says who?

I'm really having a hard time understanding why many of you can't grasp this relatively simple concept.

~Dr. Imago

ritebakatcha

 

[332nd]

Uggh... Again, not the point and not what I said. I said the other candidate is more qualified. But, because of Aiken's celebrity, he essentially is going to get the popularity vote. That, in essence, this trumps the fact that he is younger, less experienced, in life, less educated, etc. this gives him an unfair advantage.

Or maybe people looked at his platform & liked what they saw there more than that of the other candidate.

 

[Travis]

A guy with an MBA from Harvard vs. an American Idol winner? Your question can't be serious.

~Dr. Imago

P.S. I have no dog in this fight. I don't live in NC.

I'm always suspicious of those with an MBA from Harvard. One of the reasons I wasn't too warm to Obama early on in 2008 was that he went to Harvard Law School. However Obama won me over with his stance on health care reform eventually.

So how might this guy win me over if I were a voter in his district?

An MBA is somehow a qualification for office? You do know government is not a business, don't you? Expecting a degree in business to prove ability in government is like, I don't know, expecting an MD to prove ability in political reasoning.

Again, thanks for (again) proving (perhaps unwittingly) my point. I'm not even going to fully respond the "government is not a business" comment because it is well beyond the scope of this thread. But, suffice it to say that your sentiment is precisely why this country is in so much trouble financially.

~Dr. Imago

Yeah, it is in trouble because Ivy League drones with MBA's keep mucking things up in their quest to turn America into a new feudal society.

Trump is more infamous than famous. And hardly likeable. At least in mine and most other Americans' minds. Bad example.

Schwarzenegger is a better one. A complete RINO that ultimately did nothing great or lasting for California except serve his own ego, and whose administration ended in scandal and divorce. Yeah, he was a popular and likeable guy before he took office. If he hadn't been "Ah-nold" and just some unknown Austrian weightlifter from the local gym, he would have been laughed out of his first debate.

As it stands, you can go far on celebrity in politics. And when people vote them into office and they do a terrible job, they have no one but themselves to blame.

~Dr. Imago

Oh please. Arnold won because of two things, neither of which had anything to do with his movie stardom.

1) He had immersed himself in state politics for some time. So he was well aware of the major issues and actually had ideas on how to address them. Not all of them worked but he did have ideas.

2) He was running against a field of truly unqualified candidates (remember Larry Flynt and pornstar were among them) and one disgraced career politician incumbent governor.

Most people didn't take him seriously at first because of his past as an actor. He had to win in spite of that not because of it.

Or maybe people looked at his platform & liked what they saw there more than that of the other candidate.

Impossible. Celebrities are always unqualified.

 

[The_Animus]

Abnegation will lead us to ruin! Erudite are the ones who should be in charge!

 

[Minoosh]

Like others I'm mystified why being an Idol runner-up 11 years ago makes one a celebrity. He entered a tough competition and used his persuasive skills to make it to the next round. He continued to garner support during the competition by showing his musical chops.

It takes confidence to get as far in the competition as he did, and he did it on talent, not looks. I had no idea who Clay Aiken was before today, but spent a few pleasurable minutes listening to his interpretations of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "Unchained Melody." Confidence, people skills, the ability to take criticism and improve because of it - why would these not be useful qualifications? A politician who is brilliant but unable to persuade won't get much done in office.

If you want to write him off as an airhead, fine - no one will stop you - but so far you have failed to convince your audience and have refused to present much in the way of evidence to back your position. That would be a liability in political office, IMO.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

I'll clarify: the better candidate is going to lose simply because Aiken is popular and known...

Your assertion is unsupported.

...and that gives him an unfair advantage, IMHO.

I may see your problem: life isn't fair.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Yes, have you? People are only talking about Clay Aiken so far on this thread, a 35-year-old pop star with fairly anodyne positions on current social issues. That's versus the state controller and business entrepreneur who understands government machinations, as well as having far greater life experience.

I ask again: who's ultimately better to represent the people of North Carolina?

~Dr. Imago

How about the person who better represents their interests and values?

Why should age matter? Or post-BS education. Heck, even BS education isn't required. I'd say there is a risk in having our legislature be so unrepresentative of America.

 

[Spindrift]

Yes, have you? People are only talking about Clay Aiken so far on this thread, a 35-year-old pop star with fairly anodyne positions on current social issues. That's versus the state controller and business entrepreneur who understands government machinations, as well as having far greater life experience.

He wasn't state controller (sic). He was Secretary of the NC Commerce Department.

I ask again: who's ultimately better to represent the people of North Carolina?

Who can know? If qualifications alone made for a great elected official, Herbert Hoover would be on Mount Rushmore. He was certainly more qualified than FDR.

 

[Alareth]

Dr Imago, is your stance that anyone who has achieved any level of fame in their life should be disqualified from public office?

 

[Alareth]

He was on Colbert a few days ago http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/2nuw76/republican-advantage-in-the-2014-midterms---clay-aiken

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Who can know? If qualifications alone made for a great elected official, Herbert Hoover would be on Mount Rushmore. He was certainly more qualified than FDR.

What qualifications should people have to run for elected office anyway? Given that most of the actual job of politician is schmoozing, I would think popularity would be an asset.

In my opinion, most of the problems in the US stem from electing lawyers and businessmen/women instead of housewives, plumbers and artists.

 

[Ranb]

Noted conspiracy theorist and 9/11 kook Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota.

Seeing Ventura in the ballot convinced me to change my residence from MN to WA after being stationed there.

Here is a list of actor-politicians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_actor–politicians

Ranb

 

[ABC10]

We got living proof in the White House that this is a true heading.

 

[Puppycow]

The candidate he is up against is far more qualified and would do a better job.

Not sure we can be certain of that.

But, it's probably moot anyway, because whichever one of them wins will probably lose to the Republican incumbent in November (in 2012 she beat her opponent 56%-41%, a pretty safe margin. The district has been gerrymandered to be safe for Republicans. Aiken might even stand a better chance of winning in November than his opponent, although it's a long shot either way.

BTW, if Aiken loses in November, does that disprove your theory? Or is it unfalsifiable?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Clay Aiken? That Clay Aiken? Really?



http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/05/clay-aikens-race-in-north-carolina-too-close-to-call/

And, this is good for North Carolina how exactly?

~Dr. Imago

People also voted for Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and Dennis Kucinich. I doubt Aiken could be any worse.

 

[Nova Land]

It occured to me this afternoon that there's a rather obvious question which should be addressed but hasn't been: Just how famous is Clay Aiken? I know I'd never heard of him before this thread, and it appeared quite a few other posters weren't especially familiar with him either. Was the general public really as well-acquainted with him as the OP implied?

In tagging this thread I immediately saw there was already a clay aiken tag in existence. I clicked the tag and found that Clay Aiken was briefly a topic of discussion here 7 1/2 years ago in the thread Rosie O'Donnell is an idiot concerning Aiken jokingly covering Kelly Ripa's mouth with his hand during an interview, Ripa saying he shouldn't have done that because "I just don't know where that hand's been, honey", and O'Donnell calling Ripa's remark homophobic.

As far as I can tell that's the only time Aiken has come up for actual discussion here (although there have been 4 don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it mentions of him in threads not specifically about him here, here, here and here.) Hmmm. Not exactly a hot topic at JREF, then, although clearly some people here were familiar with him several years ago.

So I did a custom Google search for mentions of Clay Aiken from January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2013, to get an idea of how many online references to Aiken had been made in the years between appearing on American Idol and his current run for office.

Google came up with a rather paltry 251 hits for that time period, and many of these were for music videos or ringtones rather than for items where Clay Aikens made the news or was being discussed:

Ah, but the number of hits is actually smaller that that! Some of those hits, as you can see here, are actually for news stories from this past week:

So while Clay Aiken may be well-known to Dr. Imago, it's not clear how well-known he is to the public at large. He appears to be someone who hasn't been talked about or on people's minds much in the years since his brief tv stint. That makes the claim that people are voting for Aiken based on his fame and popularity, rather than on the issues he's campaigning on, even more dubious.