Word: huckstered
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...course, did not originate political salesmanship. Portraying politicians in the best possible light is as old as politics, and many of today's ploys are merely electronic adaptations of old-fashioned tactics. But TV has the power to magnify mummery beyond the wildest huckster's dream of a generation ago. Political advertising frankly approximates product advertising, merely substituting candidate for product. More and more it makes its appeal with the tactics of commercial advertising-with spots of less than 60 seconds on shows calculated to have the right viewers for the pitch. In New Jersey, where Republican Nelson...
...barbarous; If I whisper, you will not hear me; If I speak normally, you will say that I am indifferent." A great poem, a Vietnam headline, a back-page conundrum all appear the same- mute and urgent; just as a general, a soldier- killing or being killed- and a huckster are all the same size, volume, and duration on television, that magnificent annihilator of moral distinction, which cuts us even as we ignore it. We consume our words, our dead and dying, with equal voracity, equal unconsciousness. A thousand exhortations impinge on man, who, if insensitive, can only grow bitter...