Harnessing the power of image in politics
It is an unhappy truth that the image a politician projects has a strong influence on voters.
“Controlling the image” of a leader, the watchword of the Reagan presidency where image politics all began, is a critical mission for modern political staffers. Especially today, when the platforms for image distribution to the public have multiplied exponentially.
Consider how many voters perceive today’s major world leaders: the calm, intelligent, thoughtful Angela Merkel; the slick, well-staged, Emmanuel Macron; the macho Vladimir Putin; the out-oftouch and irresolute Theresa May; the angry Donald Trump; and, of course, our charming Justin Trudeau.
These perceptions are aided by traditional media who know that sales and ratings are enhanced by prominently featuring the most compelling video and photos. Nevertheless, for substantial information about politics, leaders, and world and local events, they still dominate and set the agenda, and, despite Trump’s rantings about fake news, TV and print also impact influencers and politicians who watch and read obsessively.
President Reagan’s deputy chief of staff Michael Deaver’s sole responsibility was creating and controlling Reagan’s image. He wrote the book on image manipulation, a book studied and followed by future generations of leaders’ staff. We can thank him for the careful staging of political events with beaming supporters as backdrops, the roped off areas for cameras as presidents or prime ministers visit factories, farms, schools, or even sit down with “ordinary” folks in their homes.
Deaver steered the president away from reporters, instead arranging Rea- gan in settings that visually conveyed the message of the moment. The Harper PMO followed this strategy to the letter, as do Trump’s aides.
Pierre Trudeau’s staff did not have to work as hard to produce appealing images. Tossing his kids in the air, diving into a pool, or pirouetting at Buckingham Palace, constitute a memorable album of a naturally physical leader. Staff took advantage.
We got him in an Indigenous canoe on the Amazon River during a trip to Brazil and he danced in a caftan in the desert with Saudi Oil Minister Sheik Yamani. Following Trudeaumania and his 1968 leadership win, CBC ran a documentary titled “The Style is the Man Himself,” featuring him in a cape. “The camera loves him,” a senior CBC cameraman once told me.
The camera loves his son, too. Not just press cameras. The literally millions of cellphone cameras in everyone’s pocket. Justin’s ease with crowds, his natural good looks and physicality, his beautiful wife and great kids have spawned a flood of images in social media that is unprecedented in modern politics. He remains popular with18 to 35-year old voters partly because of his ubiquity in their media.
It is politics and political communications that have changed, and Justin Trudeau conforms perfectly and effortlessly to these changes. He may annoy with pat answers, but he delights with such very human acts, such as setting himself up at the lobby counter for the G20, greeting people with “that Canadian politeness you hear so much about,” as Mimi Launder wrote in social media.
His father was seldom criticized for his style or image because of the weight and substance of his vision for Canada. On the night he was defeated by Joe Clark, he said: “I have miles to go and promises to keep.” He kept them after 1980, repatriating the Constitution and giving us the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
His son has many promises to keep, too — many very challenging, not the least finding solutions to 150 years of mistreatment of our Indigenous peoples. He will be held to account for policy achievements by the ever-watchful traditional media. The new media may sustain his image, but it won’t help him solve the serious challenges he faces.