Sunday, December 30, 2007

Obama-Clinton exchange

During a debate between Democratic presidential hopefuls this month, Sen. Barack Obama said he would move U.S. foreign policy in a different direction if elected. He was asked how he would do this because several of his advisers once worked for President Bill Clinton.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, the wife of the former president and the Democratic frontrunner, laughed out loud and said, "I'm looking forward to hearing that."

The comment drew loud laughter from the crowd.

Obama waited for the laughter to subside and then responded, "Hillary, I'm looking forward to you advising me as well."

Obama got the last laugh.

Mike Huckabee-Chuck Norris

A few weeks ago, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee jumped from relative obscurity among Republican presidential candidates to become the party's front runner in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Huckabee owes at least part of his rising popularity to a television commercial where he and actor Chuck Norris trade straight-faced characteristics about the other.
"Mike Huckabee is a life-long hunter, who will protect our Second Amendment rights," Norris sternly says. Huckabee then responds, "There's no chin behind Chuck Norris's beard, only another fist." Norris counters with, "Mike Huckabee wants to put the IRS out of business." And Huckabee adds, "When Chuck Norris does a push up, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the earth down . . . Chuck Norris doesn't endorse, he tells America how it's gonna be."
Is Huckabee saying that we should vote for him because Chuck Norris says so? Well, maybe, but probably not.
Huckabee said he wanted the ad to increase interest in his campaign. This has certainly happened. News programs continue to run the ad at no cost to the Huckabee campaign. The ad also has had nearly a million hits on U-Tube. Huckabee also said he wanted to remind voters that presidential campaigns should be fun.
Nothing is undervalued in political campaigning as much as humor - unless it's honesty.

Orlando Sentinel -- Humor Pulls No Punches

Humor pulls no punches: Campaign ads can tickle political funny bone
Chris Lamb
Special To The Sentinel
December 23, 2007

A few weeks ago, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee jumped from relative obscurity among Republican presidential candidates to become the party's front-runner in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Huckabee owes at least part of his rising popularity to a television commercial where he and actor Chuck Norris trade straight-faced characteristics about the other.

"Mike Huckabee is a life-long hunter, who will protect our Second Amendment rights," Norris sternly says.Huckabee then responds, "There's no chin behind Chuck Norris's beard, only another fist."

Norris counters with, "Mike Huckabee wants to put the IRS out of business."

And Huckabee adds, "When Chuck Norris does a push-up, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the earth down. . . . Chuck Norris doesn't endorse, he tells America how it's gonna be."

Is Huckabee saying that we should vote for him because Chuck Norris says so?

Well, maybe, but probably not.

Huckabee said he wanted the ad to increase interest in his campaign. This has certainly happened. News programs continue to run the ad at no cost to the Huckabee campaign. The ad also has had nearly a million hits on YouTube. Huckabee also said he wanted to remind voters that presidential campaigns should be fun.

Nothing is undervalued in political campaigning as much as humor -- unless it's honesty.

Humor can cut through the tedious babble of a campaign. It reduces the distance between the candidate and voters. The Huckabee ad, for instance, makes the candidate appear like he's regular folk. We want our presidents to be honest, fair, confident and decisive. But we also want them to be regular folk.

No president used humor better than Abraham Lincoln. In the television age, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, who had little in common with the common people, nevertheless, used their sense of humor to connect with them.

Television commercials offer candidates their best opportunity to connect with voters. Commercials aren't meant to reveal everything about a candidate. They should, however, reveal something distinctive about him or her. Because candidates are paying for the ad, they have considerable control over what impression they want to leave with viewers. But what impression are they leaving?

Some candidates, such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, pay a lot of money for commercials. As anyone living in a state with an early primary knows, Romney's commercials take the air more often than planes at O'Hare Airport.

Romney's commercials reveal that the candidate is rich -- or how else could he afford to run so many television ads? From his ads, viewers also learn that he's physically fit, has nice hair, and was once a successful businessman. In his early commercials, Romney, speaking directly to viewers, had little to say; he appeared earnest, but his ideas were predictable, even trite.

Now, as Huckabee has become the front runner, Romney's campaign has gone on the attack. Romney now appears annoyed, defensive, even desperate, and, yes, humorless.

Should we vote for Mike Huckabee for president because he appears to have a sense of humor? No. But we also shouldn't vote for a candidate because her husband was president, because the candidate was a television actor, or because Oprah -- or Chuck Norris -- tells us to vote for a particular person.

Political campaigns tend to be risk adverse, which explains, in part, why there is so little humor in television commercials. There's also a mistaken impression that humor isn't presidential. We can't very well have someone like Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan in the White House, can we?

Chris Lamb is a professor of Communication at the College of Charleston. His latest book is I'll Be Sober in the Morning: Great Political Comebacks, Putdowns and Ripostes. He can be reached at lambc@cofc.edu

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Washington Post, December 15, 2007

From Pericles to Obama
Thursday's Democratic debate added to a long and noble tradition of poltical putdowns.
By Chris Lamb
Saturday, December 15, 2007
12:00 AM
During Thursday's debate among the Democratic presidential hopefuls, Sen. Barack Obama was asked how he would shift U.S. foreign policy in a different direction, given that several of his advisers once worked for President Bill Clinton. "I want to hear that," Sen. Hillary Clinton chimed in, provoking laughter. Obama waited a moment, and then quipped: "Well, Hillary, I'm looking forward to you advising me as well." It was Obama who got the last laugh.
A sharp comeback can be a potent political weapon. But, so far, the current presidential campaign has been long on sound and fury and short on memorable exchanges between politicians.
That wasn't always the case. Here are 10 of the best political comebacks in history, as they've been passed down in the political lore.
1. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is said to have been drinking at a party when he bumped into Bessie Braddock, a prudish political opponent. "Mr. Churchill, you are drunk," Braddock said.
"And Bessie, you are ugly," Churchill said. And then, after a pause, he added: "I'll be sober in the morning."
2. There's also the story about Churchill's encounter with Lady Nancy Astor, who told him: "If you were my husband, I would poison your coffee."
"If you were my wife," Churchill replied, "I would drink it."
3. American presidency scholar Richard Norton Smith likes to cite a campaign-trail exchange between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Douglas claimed that Lincoln had been selling whiskey when they first met.
Lincoln made no attempt to dispute the charge. He agreed that he once worked as a storekeeper. "Many a time have I stood on one side of the counter," he said, "and sold Mr. Douglas whiskey on the other side."
4. In 1921, Agnes Macphail became the first woman elected to the Canadian House of Commons. Not all of her colleagues welcomed her. One tried to embarrass her by asking, "Don't you wish you were a man?"
"No," Macphail replied. "Don't you?"
5. When Huey Long was governor of Louisiana, he supposedly told then-Texas Governor James "Pa" Ferguson: "If there had been a back door at the Alamo, there wouldn't have been a Texas."
"But there there was a back door -- and that's why there's a Louisiana," Ferguson said.
6. Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky and Sen. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts were sitting outside a Washington hotel when, according to legend, a man walked by with a pack of mules. "Clay, there goes a number of your Kentucky constituents," Webster said.
"Yes," Clay replied, "they must be on their way to Massachusetts to teach school."
7. Then-Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) once found himself in an elevator with the diminutive -- but self-assured -- then-Sen. John Tower (R-Tex.), who puffed out his chest to show off the expensive suit he'd just purchased. "What do you think?" Tower asked.
"It's very nice, but does it come in men's sizes?" Hollings replied.
8. During a 1986 debate agsinst Hollings, challenger Henry McMaster asked his opponent to take a drug test.
"I'll take a drug test if you'll take an IQ test," Hollings responded.
9. In the 5th century B.C., Alcibiades debated his uncle, the Greek orator Pericles. "When I was your age, Alcibiades, I talked just the way you are now talking," Pericles said.
"If only I had known you, Pericles, when you were at your best," Alcibiades said.
10. John Wilkes, an 18th-century political reformer, was involved in a particularly angry exchange with John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, who said to Wilkes, "Sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox!"
Wilkes responded, "That, sir, depends on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
The writer is a communication professor at the College of Charleston and author of "I'll Be Sober in the Morning: Great Political Comebacks, Putdowns, and Ripostes."
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Monday, December 10, 2007

Daytona Beach News-Journal

Originally appeared on News-Journal Online
/Footnote/colFOOT120907.htm


December 08, 2007
Three-dot courtroom follow-ups
By MARK LANE FOOTNOTE
As a full-service columnist, I feel bad when I bring something up, declare it's vitally worth paying attention to, and then never pay attention to it again.
When several stories beg for quick updates, there's only one thing to do: Declare Follow-up Sunday, pull open the asterisks drawer, and get to work.
* * *
In this dreary season of dozen-candidate political debates, it's easy to forget past eras when political back-and-forth was sharper, less canned.
That was brought home last week when Chis Lamb, an academic, author and former News-Journal reporter, sent me a copy of his new book "I'll Be Sober in the Morning --Great Political Comebacks, Putdowns and Ripostes" published by Frontline Press.
It's a hard-to-put-down paperback with one bon mot per page. And some of the mots are pretty darned bon. They're arranged chronologically from Alcibiades to George W. Bush. (If I had a dime for every time I wrote those two names together in a sentence . . .)
Lots of good, mean-spirited fun.
mark.lane@news-jrnl.com
© 2007 News-Journal Corporation. ® www.news-journalonline.com. Do not republish or distribute without permission

Friday, December 7, 2007

South Carolina Statehouse Report

When politicians are comedians

By CHRIS LAMB
Professor,
College of Charleston
Special to SC Statehouse Report

Note: In this new weekly feature, we profile various opinions about everything from issues of public policy to comments on the political system, such as the humorous piece provided today.. We encourage you to submit op-ed opinions of up to 600 words. Learn more.

DEC. 7, 2007, Charleston, S.C. -- In October, Stephen Colbert announced on his comedy program, "The Colbert Report," that he would be a candidate for the presidency. Colbert introduced his campaign with all of the cheap gimmickry of a seasoned politician, entering the television studio pulled by a bicycle pedaled by Uncle Sam. Colbert then propped his feet on a bale of hay and cracked open a beer bottle to demonstrate he was "an average Joe."
It would be easy to question Colbert's sincerity. But the 43-year-old satirist didn't come to his decision lightly. His announcement, he admitted, came after many anxious minutes.
"After nearly 15 minutes of soul-searching, I have heard the call," he said.
Colbert's candidacy challenged traditional presidential campaigns. For one thing, he said he was running as a Republican and a Democrat - or a Republicrat. Secondly, he said he planned only to run in South Carolina, testing the old political maxim, "As South Carolina goes, so goes southern North Carolina and parts of eastern Georgia."
Colbert's candidacy was aborted when the South Carolina Democratic Party refused to put the comedian's name on the ballot. Party leaders complained Colbert would make a mockery out of the political process. When pressed further, they admitted they could make a mockery of the political process without any help from an outsider.
South Carolina, traditionally, prefers its politicians to be punch lines and not comedians. There have, of course, been exceptions.
The last comedian who ran for the presidency was another South Carolinian, US Sen. "Fritz" Hollings. During his presidential run in 1984, Hollings and the other Democratic candidates were discussing their qualifications before a crowd of voters. After US Sen. John Glenn droned at length about his historic orbit as an astronaut in 1962, Hollings turned to Glenn and said, "But what have you done in this world?" Hollings got the laughs but came up short on votes and eventually dropped out of the race.
Lamb's new book is on political ripostes and comebacks. More.
When Hollings was running for re-election to the US Senate in 1986, his Republican opponent Henry McMaster inexplicably challenged Hollings, then in his 70s, to take a drug test, during a television debate. "I'll take a drug test," Hollings snapped, "if you'll take an IQ test."
Hollings's South Carolina colleague in the US Senate for decades was the robust Strom Thurmond, who took considerable pride in his obligations as a public servant. Few politicians, for instance, got closer to their female constituency than Thurmond. This became a source of admiration and humor.
At Thurmond's 100th birthday party, a member of his staff remarked: "I see so many people here today who Strom Thurmond has touched - and some he even squeezed." The speaker continued: "There are several things Strom would never miss - a peach parade, a Senate vote, or the opening of a Hooters restaurant." When the physically fit Thurmond married a woman 40 years his junior, a Senate colleague joked: "He's found someone he can practice his push-ups on."
When Thurmond retired from the Senate, Democrat Alex Sanders sought Thurmond's seat. If Sanders had won, South Carolina would've been represented by Hollings and Sanders, achieving the distinction of having arguably the two funniest members of the US Senate serving the state.
As Sanders campaigned, he would often tell the story of the Jewish fellow who left South Carolina, moved to New York and became a Communist. Eventually, he returned home and ran a store in a small town full of Klansmen. The FBI threatened to expose him to his neighbors if he didn't cooperate with the bureau's investigation of Communist activists. On his way home, the man saw an old-fashioned Gospel tent meeting, where he accepted Jesus as his savior and confessed all his sins, including having been a Communist.
"Well," Sanders said, "people in the South just love those who have fallen into sin and ask forgiveness. And Klansmen don't have much sympathy for the FBI. He never had any trouble in town after that."

Chris Lamb, a professor of Communication at the College of Charleston, is the author of a new book, "I'll Be Sober in the Morning: Great Political Comebacks, Putdowns and Ripostes," which was published in November by Frontline Press. He can be reached at lambc@cofc.edu.

Monday, December 3, 2007

The Charleston City Paper

I'll Be Sober In the Morning, touts a collection of great political comebacks, putdowns and ripostes. Here are a few zingers:
• When Rev. Edward Everett Hale was chaplain of the U.S. Senate, he was asked if he prayed for the Senators. "No," he said. "I look at the Senators and pray for the country."
• When a TV reporter was interviewing New York Mayor Ed Koch, he pressed the mayor on an issue. Koch, clearly frustrated, leaned closer to the reporter and said, "I can explain this to you; I can't comprehend it for you."
• During a television debate against Sen. Fritz Hollings in 1986, Republican Henry McMaster challenged his opponent to take a drug test. "I'll take a drug test," Hollings said, "if you'll take an IQ test."
• After Press Secretary Bill Moyers delivered grace over dinner, President Lyndon Johnson complained to Moyers that he couldn't hear him. "Mr. President," replied Moyers, "I wasn't speaking to you."
I'll Be Sober is edited by College of Charleston professor Chris Lamb, illustrated by City Paper cartoonist Steve Steglin, and published by columnist Will Moredock from Frontline Press. —Greg Hambrick