Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is running for reelection in Georgia, but the 39-year-old Democrat is increasingly looking like someone preparing for a much bigger audience.
His speeches are generating viral clips, his Senate questioning regularly appears on social media, his fundraising operation has brought in tens of millions of dollars, and now even the way he is photographed is drawing comparisons to Barack Obama.
The angle: a low camera position that captures the Georgia senator looking upward and into the distance. The shot isn’t new: John F. Kennedy and Obama both used similar ascendant and hopeful imagery, but it has become part of Ossoff’s increasingly recognizable political brand.
The similarities to Obama go beyond the camera. Ossoff has tried to build a national profile around being relatively young, controlled rhetoric, polished visuals, media fluency, and speeches that frame a political moment in generational terms.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Guardian that Ossoff’s command of the current media environment resembles Kennedy’s mastery of television. The comparison has become particularly noticeable as Ossoff’s campa...