“The Medium is the Message” – Marshall McLuhan

During the first televised presidential debate in 1960, Richard M. Nixon faltered, and lost to John F. Kennedy. McLuhan attributed Nixon's failure to an incompatibility of personage with media: Nixon was a “hot” person in a “cool” medium. Kennedy won because he was “cool” – reflecting the cool, calm and detached qualities which are essential to the televisual medium, according to McLuhan. In this election, as with earlier ones, the Medium is the message...on TV, the cool always wins.