King - Off script : an advance mans guide to White House stagecraft, campaign spectacle, and political suicide / Josh King

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To the stewards, scribes and sentries of the spectacle: the advance people of every political stripe in every political era; the journalists who cover the candidates and tell their stories; and the military and law enforcement personnel who safeguard our presidents and those they govern.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt,excerpt from the speech Citizenship in a Republic, delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, April, 23, 1910

The scene was so perfect it had to have an advance mans fingerprints on it.

In a 2016 Iowa Democratic debate moderated by CNNs John King, three candidates for president of the United States stood at podiums in a town hall format. The combatants and their ringmaster were surrounded on all sides by potential caucus - goers arrayed in five tiers of choral seating, creating a bowl effect. The manufactured setting was purpose - built for television, with a wall of human faces in soft focus as a backdrop. Televised debates political theater had come a long way since Nixon v. Kennedy in 1960.

But for the debaters, 2016 was as claustrophobic as 1960, if not more so. Their every physical and verbal tic was under intense microscopic scrutiny from the audience, both live and on television.

In visual makeup, the 2016 scene mirrored the 1992 debate between Bill Clinton, Ross Perot and George H. W. Bush at the Robbins Field House at the University of Richmond. As those three men sparred, Bush stole a glance at his watch, the gesture caught on camera and reigniting a narrative about a patrician detached from his people. Only ten more minutes of this crap, Bush thought to himself. You look at your watch and they say he shouldnt have any business running for president, he would say later.

The 2016 Iowa exchange also echoed the first debate in 2000 at UMass - Boston , where Al Gores persistent sighing during George W. Bushs answers was amplified by a hot mic, and a split screen more common for tennis matches that stole peeks at Gores eye rolls while Bush gave his answers all conspired to spoil the vice presidents night. Gores grunts, groans and grimaces regularly rank among the top ten cringe - worthy moments in debate history. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show called the performance sigh language.

The 2016 Iowa encounter did its predecessors one better. John King wrestled haplessly with the candidates to steer the direction of the dialogue. Ignoring him, they squabbled over womens rights and wage inequality with rehearsed one - liners and poll - tested rebuttals, making mincemeat of the agreed - upon rules. The crowd, interrupting with applause when each blow landed above (or below) the belt, became a live jury.

At the New Hampshire headquarters of one candidate, his astonished volunteers watched, open - mouthed , in frozen silence. His spouse, there to rally the pizza - fueled troops, couldnt stomach the bombast and walked out, trailed by a biographer who had been shadowing her that day. In ABCs TV studio, George Stephanopoulos prepared to weigh in with comment along with strategists Matthew Dowd and Donna Brazile. On MSNBC, Lester Holt got ready to cover the action.

With real newsmen, pundits and talking heads saying exactly what they always say when reacting to real political theater, the scene was so true to life that a casual viewer couldnt be faulted for thinking it real. The truth, however, was that it was all fake: fake candidates, fake caucus - goers , fake set, fake questions but real journalists all following a made - up script and delivering their lines to perfection.

The pitch - perfect scene unfolded in Chapter 37 of the Netflix series House of Cards, created by real - life former advance man and the shows executive producer Beau Willimon. It was the eleventh episode of the shows third season, in which President Frank Underwood fought for his political life in the 2016 campaign against former solicitor general Heather Dunbar and Congresswoman Jackie Sharp. For the thirty - six episodes that preceded Chapter 37, Willimons viewers had been treated to all the trappings of office, backroom deals, campaign events, media manipulations and the associated triumphs and pitfalls of running for president.

The daily humiliations and degradations visited upon Underwood, Dunbar and Sharp ring true to keen - eyed followers of American politics over the last thirty years during the Age of Optics, where playing to camera and creating compelling imagery forces candidates far from their comfort zones.

Future House of Cards storylines on humbling candidacies could borrow liberally from a series of glaring mishaps on the public stage in the Age of Optics. An unwarlike candidate rides in a tank. A seventy - three - year - old candidate falls from stage. An eco - conscious candidate canoes down a river deepened by a carefully timed water release. A gung - ho candidate lands on an aircraft carrier. A pugnacious candidate screams on - screen . A candidate with an aristocratic manner sets out for an afternoon of windsurfing in flower - patterned board shorts. A war hero candidate speaks in front of a gag - inducing green backdrop. A businessman candidate sings a patriotic song off-key.

Each of these moments happened in sequential presidential campaigns from 1988 to 2012, courting political suicide for the man in front of the lens. While each gaffe was damaging in the immediately following news cycles, three of them lived extended second lives as lethal attack ads aired by their opponents. Through advertising, news video, newspaper photos or social media contagion, visual backfires have a powerful way of hoisting candidates by their own petard.

Given the long history of death by stagecraft, the perils of political production can threaten even the real 2016 front-runners until the final votes are cast.

As First Lady Claire Underwood, played by Robin Wright, exits the headquarters toward her awaiting limo, the trailing biographer, Tom Yates, played by Paul Sparks, asks why shes leaving while her husband still struts and frets his hour upon the stage.