The Selling of the President: The Classical Account of the Packaging of a Candidate

What makes you cast your ballot?A Presidential candidate or a good campaign?How he stands on the issues or how he stands up to the camera?The Selling of the President is the enduring story of the 1968 campaign that wrote the script for modern Presidential politicking—and how that script came to be. It introduces:Harry Treleaven, the first adman to suggest that issues bore voters, that image is what countsRoger Ailes, a PR man who coordinated the TV presentations that delivered the productFrank Shakespeare, the man behind the whole campaign, who, after eighteen years at CBS, cast the image that sold America a PresidentAnd the candidate, Richard Nixon himself—a politician running on television for the highest office in the landIn his introduction, Joe McGinniss discusses why—unfortunately—his classic book is as pertinent today to understanding our political culture as it was the year it was published.