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Time - Man of the Year
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1993-04-08
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COVER STORIES, Page 70ELECTION `92It Just Wasn't That Simple
For a presidential candidate who scarcely seemed to exist
outside the TV studio, it is fitting that Ross Perot's most
enduring legacy may be in the realm of media, not politics. Not
only did he help make talk shows like Larry King Live the venue
of choice for national campaigning, he also revitalized the TV
infomercial.
In an age of sound bites and image makers, the paid
political program has acquired an earnest but dreary air. The
form has survived primarily as a weapon for fringe candidates
like Lyndon LaRouche and as an election-eve ritual for
major-party candidates, who by then are usually preaching to the
converted. Perot, however, made half-hour political ads the
centerpiece of his campaign -- with astonishing success. His
first program, a lecture on the economy that aired in early
October, drew a higher rating than the baseball play-off game
it preceded. Though ratings dropped for subsequent broadcasts,
Perot's month-long mini-series still did better than many
network prime-time shows.
Perot's inexpensively produced ads -- usually featuring
the candidate with a pointer and a set of charts -- were easy
to make fun of. They were frequently sloppy: a Perot graphic in
one referred to the "Forbes 500" instead of the Fortune 500.
They used hokey, pseudojournalistic techniques: an interviewer
in a pair of biographical ads set up the candidate with
questions like "Ross, can you remember the first time that you
spoke and people paid attention to what you said?" Often they
were downright wacky. In his election-eve effort, Chicken
Feathers, Deep Voodoo and the American Dream, Perot scoffed that
most of the jobs created in Arkansas under Governor Clinton were
in the poultry business. "If we decide to take this level of
business-creating capability nationwide," he said, "we'll all
be plucking chickens for a living."
But their very crudeness was the source of their appeal.
Perot's info mercials were an antidote to politics-as-usual
slickness -- proof that voters will sit still for a
straightforward discussion of issues. They were, moreover, a
startling break from the programming-by-committee blandness that
dominates network TV. Like those late-night ads for cellulite
treatments and baldness cures, they had the tacky verve of a
one-man band. The notes were occasionally jarring, but you sure
knew who was making the music.
-- By Richard Zoglin