Politics and pop culture: Are we electing a celebrity-in-chief?

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Politics and pop culture: Are we electing a celebrity-in-chief?

First "Saturday Night Live." Tonight, "The Daily Show." Hillary Clinton is everywhere in popular culture -- and even makes SNL references during debates. And, of course, Obama has been the beneficiary of some nice YouTube videos, while Chuck Norris made some cameos during the GOP primaries.

How much do politics and pop culture affect each other? How much should they?

Ben likes: Hillary Clinton, 'Saturday Night Live,' and the new politics

Matthew Sheffield/NewsBusters

In the age of instant, uninformed analysis where American's personal addressbooks trump elite opinionslingers, knowing how to reach out to the average person, through both positive messaging and free media is what matters most. Add on a good ground game and you have a guaranteed winner.

This piece is headlined "the new politics" but in many ways, the ideas sketched here are really not that new. They are, in fact, the quintessential elements of Reagan-style politics in a more modern packaging. Unfortunately for conservatives, none of their preferred candidates seemed capable of grasping this point.

Joel likes: Box-office campaigns

Jon Margolis/New York Times

Not long before the first votes were cast for the 1984 presidential nominations, Newsweek asked on its cover, ''Can a Movie Help Make a President?'' over a picture of Ed Harris, star of ''The Right Stuff.'' Harris played John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth in 1962, who had become the Ohio senator running for president in the Democratic primaries.

So it is that we who remember the ''Glenn administration'' have a special responsibility to talk about the political impact of popular culture.

With talk radio, the 24-hour cable news networks, the Internet and blogging, technology and popular culture have all been offered up as vehicles for revolutionizing presidential politics. The Internet was a useful fund-raising and organizing tool for Howard Dean. Useful but insufficient; even a good tool cannot rescue a poor candidate.