‘A Wrapped-up Product Called the Candidate’
Is the public generally dissatisfied with the choice of Al Gore and George W. Bush? Is there no overriding issue in the campaign? Do third-party candidates Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan stand to influence history? It has all been seen before, Sullivan says. The course probes the selling of the candidate, beginning with the Log Cabin Campaign of 1840 that painted William Henry Harrison, the son of a plantation owner, as a homespun frontiersman, and progressing through the modern process that gives us "a wrapped-up product called the candidate." Students examine how big money has gotten bigger and bigger, dominating the process and freezing out the average voter. "We no longer participate in politics, we sit back and watch it," Sullivan observes. Students also consider how the parties’ roles have changed, with Republican conservatism and Democratic liberalism making for a political world turned upside down. Sullivan, who has lectured widely on the subject, believes there’s been a rekindling of interest in the study of presidential politics, even if he can’t put his finger on the reason. "I find a ready crowd of all ages. I’ve even had people walk in off the street who want to take the course," says Sullivan, noting that a range of ages lends depth to the course. For source material, the students won’t have to look far. The Museum of American Political Life on campus has one of the finest collections of White House campaign memorabilia in the nation, second in size only to that of the Smithsonian. A source for scholars across the country, the core of the museum, opened in 1989, was the private collection of J. Doyle DeWitt, chairman of The Travelers Insurance Company. When DeWitt donated his treasures to the University, Sullivan became founding director and curator. For all his love of politics, and perhaps even because of it, Sullivan has one great difficulty. "I have a devil of a time keeping myself objective," he admits. Although he tries to keep his sentiments to himself, he confesses, "I grew up in a political-junkie family, so it’s hard to keep my mouth shut. Halfway though the course I get this knowing look: Who are you kidding, professor." Sullivan grew up in Salem, Mass., in a family of Irish Democrats and caught the political bug from his parents, admirers of FDR and supporters of the New Deal. "I never saw a Republican until I went to college," he says. His latest book, about Boston mayor James Michael Curley, was published this spring. Whatever their political stripe, his students are in for an exhilarating trip through two centuries of a uniquely American process that, at its finest, is inspired lunacy. "I think politics is the highest form of entertainment," Sullivan says. Books by Edmund B. Sullivan |
Edmund B. Sullivan’s return to campus is not limited to his curatorial duties for "The Will of the People?" The founder of the Museum of American Political Life and professor emeritus of education is now an adjunct professor of history. He is teaching an upper-level course, Campaigning for the White House, this fall, as he has several times since the early 1990s.
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