Date:    Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:00:35 -0400
<br>From:    Larry Horn <laurence.horn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU>
<br>Subject: Re: big weekend
<br>
<br>At 8:22 AM -0700 6/8/98, Yongwei Gao wrote:
<br>>Dear all,
<br>>
<br>>
<br>>2. Is  looksmanship  ever recorded in any dictionaries? Example: Ever
<br>>since the dawn of the television age, when John F. Kennedy wiped the
<br>>floor with Richard Nixon before he had opened his mouth (a lesson on
<br>> looksmanship  that Nixon never forgot) American politicians have been
<br>>hitting the hair dye bottle and hiring  image consultants.  (Sources:
<br>>presumably Newsweek) And what does it exactly mean?
<br>>
<br>I doubt it's in dictionaries.  My suspicion is that was a nonce word (it
<br>doesn't show up on Nexis, which started cataloguing well after the
<br>Kennedy-Nixon campaign, so it doesn't seem to have stuck).  As the
<br>quotation suggests, it refers to the use of the physical component of
<br>"image" politics--control over one's appearance on TV as a key element in
<br>winning minds and influencing elections.  The story is that radio listeners
<br>thought that Nixon had "won" the debate with Kennedy (I believe it was the
<br>one that dealt with the all-important issue of the fate of Quemoy and Matsu
<br>[spelling approximate]), but that television viewers were convinced Kennedy
<br>thrashed him, all because Nixon had the wrong make-up, seemed to be
<br>sweating, had his usual 5:00 shadow, etc., while Kennedy--the
<br>"novice"--appeared cool and relaxed.  The term "looksmanship" itself would
<br>have been an analogous formation based on the then-popular "brinksmanship",
<br>dealing with U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War years.
<br>Or so I'd guess.
<br>
<br>Larry
<br>