Choosing a politician is like falling in love?

IN 1968 an American journalist, Joe McGinniss, began to follow the team of public relations men and television experts who helped create the image of Richard Nixon, a Republican who was running for president that year.

Mr McGinniss's reportage was eventually published as a book titled The Selling of the President, in which he described how candidate Nixon was sold like a product during the campaign, a notion that shocked many Americans then.

Indeed, the book's jacket featured Nixon's face on a pack of cigarettes, suggesting that professional advertisers had played a central role in helping the Republican politician win the White House that year, an argument that sounded very controversial in 1968.