Star Power

American Democracy in the Age of the Celebrity Candidate

Lauren Wright

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429888823
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Are celebrity politics the spice of American public life or a pox on policy progress? This book identifies and measures the attributes of celebrities that make them well-equipped to win campaigns and yet poorly prepared to govern effectively. The framers of the U.S. Constitution worried about the propensity of an undereducated public to elect unqualified entertainers rather than fit characters to government positions. Celebrities have come to play an increasingly central role in the American political process as fundraisers, surrogates, and as candidates themselves, yet remain a sorely understudied topic in political science. Through a multimethod approach that includes qualitative analysis, novel public opinion surveys, and survey experiments, this book assesses whether Americans are more likely to vote for celebrities than well-known traditional politicians and the implications of these preferences for democracy in the U.S. Perfect for students, scholars, and interested citizens, Star Power looks at the contemporary American political landscape through new lenses of research as well as popular appeal.

CHAPTER 1
★
A SHORT HISTORY OF A LONGSTANDING OBSESSION

Roadmap

The increasing involvement of celebrities in the American political process reached a seeming crescendo in November 2016 when voters sent a reality television star with no political or military experience to the White House for the first time in history. But it did not stop there.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson announced his candidacy for President of the United States on the season finale of Saturday Night Live. Tom Hanks agreed to be his running mate. Caitlyn Jenner jumped into the mix not long after, telling CNN’s Don Lemon, “I would look for a senatorial run.”¹ Cynthia Nixon made a serious bid for Governor of New York. Kid Rock teased a run for United States Senate and a Super PAC backed by Mitch McConnell threw its support behind him. On his freshly launched campaign website, www.kidrockforsenate.com, the singer wrote “The democrats are ‘shattin’ their pantaloons’ right now… and rightfully so!… it’s game on mthrfkers.”

Kid Rock’s assertion is bothersome in many ways, but what most concerns me is its accuracy. Celebrities possess a multitude of attributes traditional politicians do not that amount to high levels of electability. As a GOP campaign operative recently mentioned, Kid Rock was polling only eight points behind Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow heading into the 2018 midterms.² Another poll projected that The Rock would beat Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2020 matchup by a five-point margin.³ But celebrities lack the knowledge and experience we typically associate with effective governance.

This combination does not bode well for our republic. The founding fathers believed that Americans would elect ‘fit characters’ to represent them in government, responsible delegates who would prevent the socioeconomic clashes that ultimately destroy democracies. The problem is, of course, that Americans do not elect fit characters to positions of power. As scholars who study candidate quality and polarization have long noted, the difficulty of campaigning for and holding office prevents the most qualified people from running.⁴ The result is a dysfunctional and highly polarized government, of which the Trump administration is arguably indicative.

Instead of keeping the tendency of voters to choose unqualified candidates in check, the media has exacerbated the problem by giving celebrities more airtime than ever to discuss current affairs and advertise their political aspirations. The broadcast and print journalists who bemoaned the election of Donald Trump after they facilitated his success have already gone so far as to promote the candidacy of Hollywood heavyweights. In response to The Rock and Tom Hanks’s presidential announcement on SNL, USA Today said, “We would definitely be here for that.”⁵ Vanity Fair quipped, “Are we the only ones hoping this comedy becomes a reality?”⁶

Scholars, too, are complicit in the current state of our elections. Even with all the proper tools at hand to study the appeal celebrities have to the voting public, political scientists have not taken the topic seriously. Historians have been equally limp in their attempts to explain the powerful role of fame in our electoral process. “Celebrity is an ineffable quality,” said Mark D. Upgrove in an interview with Kenneth Walsh.⁷ That, it is most certainly not.

The same components of celebrity that drive television ratings contribute to their electability. They are identifiable, they are measurable, and this book is the first to estimate the effect these qualities have on vote choice.

The first attribute celebrities bring to electoral politics is name recognition. The idea that it is difficult to get people to vote for a name they do not recognize on a ballot makes common sense, and political science research has shown that high name recognition is a considerable advantage to candidates, particularly at the earliest stages of a campaign when numerous candidates are competing for attention.⁸ This was certainly the case heading into the first Republican debate in August 2015. At 92% name recognition among Republicans, Donald Trump dominated a field of 16 of the nation’s most prominent politicians. Even Jeb Bush, a well-liked former Governor of Florida with two former presidents in his family, had just 81% name recognition at the time. Trump’s numbers also dwarfed those of Governors Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki and Senators Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Ohio Governor John Kasich had just 39% and 35% name recognition, respectively.⁹

In addition to being more recognizable than traditional politicians, celebrities are more popular. Unlike politicians, who are in the business of publicizing controversial policy views and staking divisive partisan claims, celebrities operate in mostly apolitical spheres. Celebrities rise to prominence in the context of products and activities Americans of all political stripes know and love: music, movies, television, and sports.

Outsider status is a closely related attribute that is nearly impossible for traditional politicians to access but that celebrities have in spades. Celebrities are popular in part because they are not political insiders and therefore are not perceived to be responsible for the nation’s current problems. Their station outside of the Washington swamp, as Donald Trump commonly characterizes it, not only relieves celebrities of this negative association, but makes it difficult for their opponents to dig up misdeeds and use their record against them. Since celebrities are not career politicians, their character is often judged by the standards to which entertainers adhere, or the lack thereof, rather than a stricter code of conduct we generally expect our government representatives to follow.

How many times has the outsider explanation been used by Trump’s supporters to unburden him from the criticism that follows abhorrent behavior? “He’s just new to this,” House Speaker Paul Ryan has said of the president.¹⁰ When tapes were released of Trump casually talking about sexually assaulting women in October of 2016, one of the main arguments Republicans made on Trump’s behalf was that the tapes were old. In an op-ed written for The Hill, Ben Carson, who endorsed Trump after dropping out of his own race, said, “the incident happened ten years ago, well before Trump entered the political arena.”¹¹

Outsider status not only serves as a get-out-of-jail-free card for celebrities entering the political fray, but is perceived to be a positive trait. As former Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal wrote of Ronald Reagan, “he finessed the ‘actor issue’ by casting himself as a ‘citizen-politician,’ asserting his lack of qualification precisely as his salient qualification.”¹²

The lack of qualifications most celebrities have to run for political office and govern also makes it easier for the general public to relate to them. Relatability is something traditional politicians spend time and resources attempting to achieve in vain. Being an elected official or wanting to run for office is not something most Americans have experienced, and the rigidity and formality of government jobs, not to mention the artificial packaging of campaigning, makes politicians seem even more distant. When politicians appear on television, they must simultaneously appease their base and avoid alienating people outside of it, a tightrope walk that ends up sounding robotic and rehearsed. Every statement is crafted just so.

Celebrities, by contrast, are native to television. Their livelihood depends on exceling at public performance. While this amounts to a considerable advantage over their less telegenic opponents in an age of ubiquitous media, celebrities are also excused when they stumble on the campaign trail. Gaffes that result from inexperience reinforce their outsider status, and enable voters to put themselves in a celebrity candidate’s shoes. This particular artifact of relatability may be one of the more striking features of Donald Trump’s candidacy and presidency. Underneath the president’s inarticulate bumbling and embarrassing indiscretions is an imperfect person that reminds Americans of their own mistakes and makes them feel better about their moral shortcomings. Trump is not better than the average American. In many ways he is one.

Another way celebrities build relatability is through continuous public exposure. This is especially true of reality television stars, whose personal interactions and daily routines are documented and broadcasted to the world. These shows are a priceless political platform. Traditional politicians spend months on the campaign trail shaping a public persona with no guarantee it will stick or resonate in the minds of voters. Celebrities can skip this step. They have already spent years character-building. Donald Trump’s tenure on The Apprentice gave millions of viewers valuable insight into the future president’s personal strengths and weaknesses, his failures, and his successes.

Among all of these attributes, relatability is perhaps the most intriguing. It is a common misperception that Americans want to elect people that represent the best of society. Many would rather elect people who remind them of themselves. This is something Donald Trump understood intuitively heading into the 2016 election that countless elites missed. Trump also debunked the notion among historians that for presidential candidates to succeed, they must distinguish themselves from their competitors in positive ways. The first step, and therefore the more essential one, is attention-getting, by any means possible, even if it is negative. Campaign advertising studies have shown that although Americans say they detest negative ads when surveyed, they are actually more likely to watch them, remember them, and respond to them than positive ads in many cases.¹³

Relatability, however, is not the same as favorability. Familiarity with a person does not imply fondness, a notion exemplified by the president’s historically low approval ratings. Yet by attaining fame, celebrities prove that they are interesting to the public and the media. Similarly to the way in which name recognition necessarily precedes favorability, public interest in the lives of celebrities begets media attention. Few would deny that most mainstream media outlets remained critical of Trump throughout the 2016 election, but constant coverage of his candidacy produced historically high ratings for news networks. Even as his administration struggles to minimize the negative cloud surrounding it, Trump continues to maximize public interest in himself and his presidency.¹⁴

In addition to tracking television ratings, counting social media followers can be a valuable tool to quantify public interest in traditional politicians and celebrities, especially because the number of people who get their news and information from social media is growing rapidly. Social media gives followers a chance to actively engage with their representatives and favorite celebrities, rather than passively reading or hearing about them. Research demonstrating how tweets and shares can predict vote choice, or even electoral outcomes, has only started to emerge. But one of the most foundational indications of a candidate’s progress remains fundraising.

Donating to a campaign signals often signals a high level of commitment to a candidate because doing so requires more sacrifice and effort than liking a post on Facebook. The same goes for volunteering, which is perhaps the most time intensive signal of support for a candidate. Celebrities have been shown to be fairly effective at garnering volunteers, media attention, and financial support on behalf of candidates they have endorsed. One study in 2012 suggested that Oprah’s endorsement of Barack Obama in early 2008 indirectly earned him more than one million votes in his favor.¹⁵ On the eve of the voter registration deadline in her home state of Tennessee before the 2018 midterms, Taylor Swift took to Instagram to urge her fans to visit Vote.org and make their voices heard on November 6. Less than 48 hours after Swift’s post, 169,000 people had registered to vote on the site, which credited the singer with drawing young people who might not have been aware of the deadline otherwise.¹⁶ But little if any research has been published on whether celebrity candidates are more effective grassroots motivators and fundraisers than the traditional candidates they run against. What is clear from existing political science research is that while campaign donations do not give donors disproportionate influence over the decisions candidates make (e.g., a floor vote) they do give donors more personal access to candidates.¹⁷ The public is exceedingly interested in meeting celebrities. They travel to see them, buy their products, and pay to watch them perform. This gives celebrities a natural fundraising advantage over traditional politicians.

The qualities and instincts celebrities have that make them successful in the political arena are the driving force behind the theory of this book. Even in the most prominent books about how the rich and famous shape our political culture, celebrity has been treated...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 A Short History of a Longstanding Obsession
• Chapter 2 In Their Own Words: Why Celebrities Run
• Chapter 3 Celebrities, They’re Not Like Us
• Chapter 4 Do Voters Prefer Celebrity Candidates to Politicians?
• Chapter 5 The Death of U.S.?
• Appendix
• Index