Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/071392/07139933.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 6KB | 125 lines

                                                                                REVIEWS, Page 77

TELEVISION

Minding Their Q's and A's


By RICHARD ZOGLIN

    WHO: Bill Clinton, Ross Perot, George Bush
    WHERE: All Over the Dial

    THE BOTTOM LINE: Never mind the issues; TV forums provide
valuable glimpses of the candidates in action.


    Jay Leno's guests on Wednesday night were Geena Davis,
Jackson Browne and Northern Exposure's Darren Burrows. "And,"
the Tonight Show host announced with pride in a network promo,
"no presidential candidates!"

    It was a rare respite. For weeks, Ross Perot and Bill
Clinton have been taking their campaign to almost any TV studio
that would open its doors, from the network morning shows to
Arsenio Hall. Last week President Bush reluctantly joined the
media blitz, fielding questions from everyday folks for an hour
and a half on CBS This Morning. TV's talking heads have never
been so garrulous.

    Some pundits are worried that these candidate Q-and-A
sessions have supplanted regular newscasts with something less
rigorous journalistically. The carping seems misguided. The
citizen forums have not replaced the news; they have replaced
other forms of campaigning. What's more, they compare favorably
with more mainstream TV-news venues. When Barbara Walters talked
with Bush on 20/20 not long ago, the encounter was so carefully
stage-managed that her earnest voice-over ("The President's
greeting was warm, his desk clear") sounded like parody. ABC's
Peter Jennings aired a prime-time special last week on Perot,
but the rehash of familiar material was merely a warm-up to the
lively 1-hr. 40-min. "town meeting" that followed.

    Perot's appearances have the suspense of a good TV movie:
Will the mysterious billionaire lose his composure and reveal
a dark side? Perot made no obvious gaffes during the ABC forum,
in which he fielded questions from studio-audience members in
10 cities. His testiness was apparent early on, when he opened
the show by rebutting several points in the Jennings program.
But he was surprisingly collected, though not particularly
convincing, when a gay activist shouted out a denunciation of
his stand on naming homosexuals to his Cabinet. (He is
concerned, he said, that such a person would be "destroyed" in
Senate confirmation hearings.)

    Perot's TV manner has its engaging side, sprinkled with
the chummy colloquialisms of a small-town businessman ("You
follow me?" "Pretty simple stuff, right?"). But his humble
routine is growing less convincing with exposure. One questioner
compared Perot to Jesse Jackson -- both have been criticized for
lack of office-holding experience -- and asked why the Texas
billionaire was any more qualified to be President. "I don't
claim that I am," Perot replied. ``That's up to the people."
Jennings prodded gently, "But surely you think you're
qualified." Perot's response: "I'm not going to sit here and
brag on myself," thus raising the question of why he was sitting
there at all.

    Clinton's TV appearances seem both more smoothly
presidential and more drably predictable. Taking call-in
questions on NBC's Today show last Tuesday, Clinton had his act
down pat, greeting each caller by name ("Good morning, Lucille")
and giving carefully measured recitations on everything from
education loans to women's rights. His class-president cool was
broken just once, when an avowed supporter asked if Clinton
would clear up his stance on the Gennifer Flowers allegations:
"Just skip any weasel words and give us a direct answer."
Clinton proceeded to repeat his familiar weasel words: Flowers'
story about their alleged affair was "not the truth," the
Clinton marriage has "had some troubles," he and his wife still
"love each other very much."

    Compared with Bush in his stilted performance on CBS This
Morning, however, Clinton looked like Bart Simpson. Instead of
phoned-in questions, the President faced a polite group of
people culled from the line waiting for a White House tour.
Sitting in the Rose Garden, they were understandably reluctant
to embarrass their host. Yet even Bush's programmed responses
were revealing. For one thing, astute viewers learned that the
President's phrase "Let me put that in perspective" is like a
road sign: EVASIVE GENERALIZATION AHEAD. And Bush's tactic of
touting his Administration's record at every turn seemed
laughably transparent. "How are you helping the rain forest?"
asked a little girl from Georgia. "By having the best
environmental record of any country," replied the President.

    The chief complaint of this campaign season is that the
candidates are avoiding "the issues." But the issues can be
overrated. An hour or two of spontaneous give-and-take provides
an important glimpse of the candidate in real, human
interaction: a taste of his temperament, a reading of his
sincerity, a feeling for how he relates to people and to
pressure.

    Everyone is learning the game quickly. The most
significant question of the campaign thus far may have come from
Katie Couric, the host for Perot's two-hour call-in session on
Today in mid-June. After he gave a waffling answer to a question
about Social Security benefits, Couric shrewdly tossed the ball
back to the caller: "Roberta, are you satisfied with that
answer?" She wasn't, and Perot had to try again. Now more
grass-roots questioners are probing with follow-ups, insisting
on "specifics." At a time when TV journalism has come to the
people, the people are learning to be journalists.