From the earliest days of the republic until the age of TV, all politics was face to face. No one could become a candidate of a political party without passing muster with thousands of people in face to face encounters.

Campaigns themselves were face to face. Candidates traveled the country making speechs (which they mostly wrote themselves), debating, talking with voters and other politicians in formal and social situations. Candidates had no choice but to allow themselves to be evaluated by thousands of people, face to face.

It was only after TV had been around for awhile that it was discovered that face to face politics could be dispensed with and candidates could be packaged and sold to the voters as something other than what they were.

George Bush, privileged son of a wealthy eastern family, Andover , Yale (Skull and Bones), was packaged and sold to the voters as a Texas cowboy.

TV has changed politics. A media creation is routinely sold in a political campaign as if it were a real person.