Photo Oops: History's Worst Political Photo Ops
As author Josh King recounts in “Dukakis and the Tank,” the first rule of political photo ops is: Never put anything on your head. Many date this hard and fast tenet
of the campaign trail to this 1927 encounter between President Calvin Coolidge and some feathers. Advisers warned Coolidge, who wore the headdress while being named an honorary chief in Deadwood, South Dakota, that he would look funny. “Well it’s good for people to laugh, isn’t it?” Coolidge replied.
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of the campaign trail to this 1927 encounter between President Calvin Coolidge and some feathers. Advisers warned Coolidge, who wore the headdress while being named an honorary chief in Deadwood, South Dakota, that he would look funny. “Well it’s good for people to laugh, isn’t it?” Coolidge replied.
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On the 1960 campaign trail, New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who once said that “No man can hope to be elected in his state without being photographed eating a hot dog at Nathan’s Famous,” was caught on film chowing down rather enthusiastically at the Coney Island stand, alongside GOP candidate Richard Nixon’s VP pick, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., and New York Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz. Democratic contender John F. Kennedy was so scarred by the photo—he “shook his head in disgust” upon seeing it—that, despite a penchant for Howard Johnson’s hot dogs and soda, he refused to be photographed eating them.
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President Richard Nixon’s team thought that allowing cameras to follow him on a “casual birthday stroll” on the beach near his San Clemente, Calif. home might help portray him as more relaxed and sociable. But the plan backfired, as pictures of Nixon walking in the sand in dress pants and wingtips, as if thrust reluctantly into nature, only emphasized how out of touch he seemed.
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In the months leading up to the 1976 presidential election, incumbent Gerald Ford made a culinary faux pas in San Antonio. At a reception hosted by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, the Michigander was handed a plate of tamales and bit into one without first removing its corn husk wrapper. “It was obvious he didn’t get a briefing on the eating of tamales," then-mayor Lila Cockrell later said.
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