TCNJ

19 came out of the notion that entertain- ment would help you appeal to the middle part of the electorate. How do we go from mass appeal to a sultry Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday" to John F. Kennedy? Our visual culture grew up very quickly. The baby boomers who were kids or teenagers during the Eisenhower Era grew up liking Ike, but by the time they were 18 or 20 or 25, they were expecting something else. They were not expecting a grandma and grandpa on TV, but something more stimulating. Sixties' television and politics provided them with precisely that. Although it wasn't televised live, Monroe's performance was a signature moment, and part of the drama came from Kennedy's reputation. In 1960, Kennedy's major opponent was Hubert Humphrey, who started attacking Kennedy as a glamour candidate, using all the images that Stevenson's campaign had launched against Eisenhower. Kennedy did have movie star friends—he had Frank Sinatra, his brother-in-law Peter Lawford, the whole Rat Pack—but he kept them at a distance because he was young and he had his own star power. His challenge was to appear sober and serious. And Nixon? A real micro-manager, Nixon did not want ad agencies to work for his 1960 campaign, so the ads by his own people—clips of him talking at a desk—were very humdrum. In '68, Nixon turned everything around and made a huge push to appear hip, although not many appealing celebrities wanted to support him. He brought in football coaches and basketball players and the singer Connie Francis. His big political guru in all of this was Roger Ailes, who recently resigned from FOX News. You also wrote Walt Whitman and the Culture of Celebrity (2006). What is it about celebrity for you? Fame has such a wide presence in our society, but it has always been the political impact of fame that is interest- ing to me. For Walt Whitman, for example, it wasn't money or hanging out with other famous people: Being celebrated by a crowd meant that his message was being adopted or endorsed by the crowd. It was a form of election. Studying Eisenhower's celebrity was a good way to follow the Whitman book because they both had ambivalent feelings about fame. It was more challenging to write about fame with Ike, for instance, than Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe. Eisenhower didn't like Hollywood stars. He found them to be really shallow. And he thought Holly- wood executives were extraordinarily self-centered and selfish. That helped thicken the story. Tell me about the course you teach on fame. Several years ago I received a grant from the National Endowment for the Warm and friendly Ike's wife Mamie was also a political asset.

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