Television politics, emphasizing emotions over rational decision making, has been accused of warping the political process, especially in the election of the president. In the incomplete medium--the collection of dots--that is television, the viewer completes the circle of communication, filling in the image with his or her own attitudes. The feeling of participation is enhanced through certain techniques: the mobile camera, vocalics, and a conversational style, as well as the projection of character through costuming, cosmetics, kinesics, and organismics. In addition, the speed of television transmission, intensified by the introduction of videotape, allows candidates to react to events as they happen in the campaign, creating viewer involvement. The progression from black-and-white to color adds a greater emotional impact to the medium and further decreases the importance of the spoken word on television. In the 1976 presidential elections sincerity was important, and Gerald Ford used lifestyle ads to promote good feeling and good living, using music to establish mood and his family to establish character. The most successful political advertising campaigns (usually the work of political consultants like Tony Schwartz, Joe Napolitan, Charles Guggenheim, and David Garth) share one common attribute: the ability to capitalize on the attitudes, beliefs, and desires of the viewer. Television persuades primarily through nonverbal emotional images, and character appears to be best displayed by these nonverbals of television. (NKA)