The era of the meme has imposed the joke and hyperbole in campaign. It is not uncommon in the midst of the tyranny of like, which forces even the civilian to be ingenious or shocking in order to monetize the (often ruinous) investment in social networks.
It wasn't always this way. When the office was in its infancy, 2,000 years ago in Ancient Rome, electoral propaganda focused the shot on the (alleged) seriousness of the candidate, a virtue now in disuse.