This 2007 post at Paleofuture seems remarkably prescient in retrospect:
The 1949 book Television: Medium of the Future by Maurice Gorham correctly identifies, but dismisses, a concern about the visual age: voting with your eyes.
Fears have been expressed lest this new reliance on television may lead to choice of candidates for their face rather than their real qualities; that the film-star types will have it all their own way. Personally I see no reason to think that this is a greater danger than we have faced in the radio age. Is it worse to vote for a man whom you have seen and heard than for a man whom you have heard but never seen except for fleeting glimpses in photographs and films? Is there any more reason why a man who is good on television should be a charlatan than a man who is good on radio? Or any inherent merit in a fine radio voice uttering speeches written by somebody else?
Fortunately by 2008, there was no way that sophisticated voters could be seduced into voting for someone based upon how he appeared on television.
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