Photo Gallery The Search for Sincerity
What do Americans want from their political candidates. Professionalsm and political ability, to be sure, but they also want to be able to imagine sitting down with them and having a beer.
Ann Romney speaking at the Republican National Convention in Florida in August with an image of her and her husband Mitt behind her. "Tonight, Im not going to talk to you about politics Im going to talk to you about love," she said. It was part of the Romney campaign's effort to portray openness.
Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have likewise striven to seem just like ordinary people. Here, they kiss on the "Kiss Cam" at a basketball game in July.
Candidates have striven to display as much sincerity as possible. Here, Romney is surrounded by his family following the presidential debate on October 16.
Mitt Romney on the campaign trail at the First Watch Cafe in Cincinnati, Ohio. Candidates' collective sentimentality aims to display a human dimension unsullied by the machinations of politics and commerce and to vie for the deeper values of religion, patriotism and goodness.
Photos such as this one, showing President Barack Obama and his daughter Sasha agonizing over ice cream flavors in Hawaii, are invaluable in demonstrating his normality. Such photos are rare in Europe.
Romney at dinner with his family at BurgerFi in October. Americans want to think they really know their candidates on an intimate level.
"Sincerity" is the most recent book by Berlin-based scholar R. Jay Magill, Jr. It was published by W. W. Norton & Company in July.
