THE ROOTS OF CELEBRITY CULTURE IN POLITICS

While the culture of celebrity dates to the early 19th century in politics, the Hollywood ethic is everywhere today. It extends to athletic fields, board rooms and even church pulpits, where evangelists like Rick Warren preach to 20,000 people every week and write mega-selling books."People want to find candidates appealing and find some qualities where they're like me or they're better than me," says Victoria Ott, a historian at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama who studies the pre-Civil War era.She points to Andrew Jackson, the self-styled populist who called himself "Old Hickory" and touted his war record. His allies cast rival John Quincy Adams as an elitist with the slogan, "Vote for Andrew Jackson, who can fight. Not for John Quincy Adams, who can write."Nearly 180 years later, the celebrity machine is churning out the same pablum, albeit electronically and instantaneously. Now it's Vietnam POW John McCain who can fight and best-selling author Barack Obama who can write.

-The Associated Press
August 11 2008