Image is everything. In the modern world of fancy cars, towering glass buildings, carefully designed websites and carefully designed women on the cover of magazines, this is not surprising. What is surprising, what should be surprising, is that this fascination with image, this obsession with physical appearance, has crept into the area where it least belongs. Politicians, the men and women who are supposed to lead our nation, now have to be as careful about their image as any supermodel or movie star. Much of the blame for this dependence on image can be placed on the age of television, that wonderful little machine that brings every major event, be it a football championship game or a political candidate's speech, to any American that you want it. While this ability to allow all Americans personal access to political campaigns serves a purpose, it has also reduced the serious problem of being chosen to lead the country in a pageantry contest. Television did at least one thing right. By providing a “new, direct, and sensitive link between Washington and the people,” as Dr. Stanton eloquently puts it, the broadcast of political debates and speeches allowed the American people to be intimately involved in the country's politics. (Campbell). And getting more people involved in the politics of a country that relies on elected officials to act according to the will of the people, in their best interests, seems to be an undeniably good thing. And as ratings and viewership for presidential debates increased from the advent of this new technology in 1960 through the 1980 debates, it seemed to be doing its job. However, in more recent years, both the ratings and the number of…half the paper…of people. It clouds judgment, blinds a clear eye with its twinkles and flashes, lets emotion and familiarity hide the logic and rationality that must be present in deciding who is the man who should lead our country. Despite the abuse that television makes of it, emotion has its place. Charisma and charm are important, useful to a leader. However, it is when these qualities begin to replace and exclude other, arguably more important ones, such as intelligence and fairness, that television goes too far. Unless the presidential candidates refuse to submit to the shine and glitter that characterizes today's televised campaign, unless the voters refuse to be humiliated, to be distracted from the real issues with narrow-minded debates and exclusive one-on-one interviews with the candidate's dog, television continue to have a detrimental effect on American politics.