the selling. clean and dirtry.

 It all sounds so  familiar . There is a dangerous sense of deja vu about this story I am linking to. 

 My longest (13 year) project on" deConstructing the Politician"   was begun when I read, in 1984, that   an American advertising agency had been hired to "Sell"  Rajiv Gandhi as the Prime Minister. They were 'branding' the young and handsome son of Indra Gandhi as a "Mr Clean" .   They succeeded ! Though, just a few years later, as Prime Minister, he shot down that perfect, clean image  with Bofors Guns. 

 I had never thought of that 'selling' as being more than just a  well done professional job by an agency that had successfully sold many an American President.  I have just a hint of a doubt now, as i read this. .  

The key, though, is to tar Mr. Reyes Villa. "We have to start negative campaigns against him," Tal Silberstein, another consultant, tells Mr. Sánchez de Lozada. "We have to make him from clean to a dirty candidate, that's our task."

"I wanted to make clear that this is a story that does not happen just in Bolivia but all over the world," said Rachel Boynton, 32, who directed and wrote the film after becoming intrigued by the American role in foreign campaigns. "I'm much more interested about the consultants as a symbol for us, as a symbol for America and American assumptions. I chose the subjects because I wanted to explore America's relationship with the rest of the world."

"It's a very explosive film in Bolivia because it shows close up a very deliberate strategy," said Jim Shultz, an American political analyst in Bolivia who recently saw the film with a group of friends. "The film is especially explosive because it's about a candidate — so identified with the United States and so hated by so many Bolivians — being put into office by the political manipulations of U.S. consultants."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/movies/26fore.html?_r=1

                                                       The Branding.  Not so 'Mr Clean '