Israel Election: What Lapid's First Days as Prime Minister Reveal About His Campaign Strategy

A term that originated in American presidential politics has been making the rounds in Israel in recent days. Yair Lapid, so they say, is going to run “a rose garden campaign.” It was first used by Jimmy Carter who, in the 1976 election, accused his rival, incumbent President Gerald Ford, of using his position as president to hold grand events at the White House, hence the rose garden, to draw the media’s attention away from Carter, the relatively unknown former southern governor. Since then, it has been used to describe the way serving presidents seeking a second term have used the trappings of their office as an asset in their campaigns.