The Simple Pleasures
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Columnist Roger Simon (“Election Campaign Goes Up in Smoke,” July 6) claims that candidates will do “just about anything to show they are regular guys.” Anything, that is, except smoke a cigarette.
But smoking is not the only activity politicians are shy about revealing to the public. You will never see a presidential candidate brushing his teeth. You will never see a news photograph of a politician sleeping. You will never read that a U.S. senator was busy watching a baseball game on television when a reporter called upon him or her for an interview.
It is not that politicians are ashamed of these activities; it is just that they don’t fit in with the image most want to present to their constituents. Mostly they want to be seen as on the go, in charge and on top of things. Smoking is a relaxing, human activity. Politicians want to be perceived as bigger than life, with no time for the ordinary pleasures of human existence.
GUY L. SMITH IV, publisher
Philip Morris magazine
New York
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