In the restaurant biz, "selling the sizzle not the steak" is a marketing strategy used to entice the customer to buy something that despite it's sensory appeal isn't quite top grade. Or worse, it means to sell the customer something that's passed it's "sell by" date but can still pass the smell test. I'm sure we've all been to restaurants where the food is overshadowed by the showmanship. You know. When the waiter comes parading across the dining room with a tray held high in the air and the smell and sound of big juicy t-bone fills the air. Your taste buds start to tingle. Your mouth begins to water. "Yup", you say, "That's for me".
Then about 20 or 25 minutes later, your waiter pushes open the kitchen doors with a flourish and bears that sizzling platter straight to your table. He sets it down before you and for a moment you lean into that juicy bit of beef to savor it with your eyes and your nose. Then the moment of truth arrives. You cut into your steak and the juices start to flow out offering yet another assurance that you made the right choice. Aaah! Then you take your first bite.
Your nose and taste bids may be telling you yes, yes but your teeth and jaws are telling you no, no. It seems that rather than a bit of prime beef you got instead a bit of prime leather. Not wanting to admit that you've been duped, you respond with vigorous nods of your head when your dining companions ask how that gorgeous steak is. You grin and bear it and manage to choke it down rather that admit you've just spent 30 bucks or more on something that would have been more appropriate in a Thom McAn store than a restaurant.
And that's the point of Frank Rich's column in today's NY Times which I strongly urge you to read in its entirety. McCain and Co. are selling us a piece of goods with flashy advertisements, long descriptions of his inflated biography, and claims that would have made P.T. Barnum blush. Yum, yum! Just like homemade!. And as Rich points out they have been aided and abetted by a gullible, pliant, lazy press corps which seems better suited to be working in the advertising department rather than the newsroom.
I wouldn't rely too much on them getting to the heart and soul of the real John McCain. Too much work. Just as easy to check the latest incoming on their Blackberries from his campaign and go with that.
Comments are closed on this story.