TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/101590/1015620.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.6 KB | 118 lines

                                                                                ETHICS, Page 98

Voters vs. the Negative Nineties


What to do when campaigns are as nasty as a David Lynch film

By WALTER SHAPIRO


    American democracy may be the inspiration of the world, but
the transcendent spirit has dismally failed to uplift U.S.
elections. Once again this year, politics has degenerated into
a duel of negative TV spots, even before the desperation
tactics that usually erupt in late October. In California, a
barrage of blistering commercials in the Governor's race
conveys the impression that Charles Keating was a piker in the
S&L scandal compared with Republican Pete Wilson and Democrat
Dianne Feinstein. Texas voters are so dispirited by the
ugliness of the gubernatorial shoot-out that both candidates
probably could be defeated by General Santa Anna.

    Each day brings a new 30-second affront to fairness. A
picture of discredited Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis
slowly dissolves into the face of Democratic Senator John Kerry
in a spot for G.O.P. Senate challenger Jim Rappaport. A Jesse
Helms ad in North Carolina lovingly replays in slow motion his
Democratic Senate challenger Harvey Gantt mouthing the phrase
"whether it's sex selection or whatever reason." Evidence that
Gantt lied when he earlier denied that he favored abortion in
such cases? Not quite. Gantt's words were snipped from a longer
answer at a press conference restating his consistent
pro-choice position. Even campaign ads responding to
out-of-bounds attacks now take on a further negative spin. A
new spot for Alabama Democratic gubernatorial challenger Paul
Hubbert begins, "Guy Hunt's launched a vicious negative
campaign. He can't run on his record, so he's resorted to
outrageous false attacks."

    Must politics be as venomous and vacant as the atmospherics
of a David Lynch movie? Perhaps not: a few heartening signs are
emerging of a movement to reform campaign tactics. There is
renewed interest in congressional proposals to require that the
candidate or his designated spokesman appear on camera
throughout all TV spots. "That way you would be returning
politics to speech, not emotive symbols," argues Curtis Gans,
the director of the Committee for the Study of the American
Electorate. "It isn't attractive television for someone to just
stand there and bad-mouth the opposition." Last week People for
the American Way petitioned the FCC to mandate that the
candidate's likeness appear on-screen for at least four seconds
in each TV commercial. Otherwise, the spot would not qualify
for reduced advertising rates under current law.

    Even as token a gambit as this four-second solution seems
refreshing amid the depressing political landscape. It might
be tempting to cast the media consultants as villains who
substitute deceptive advertising techniques for high-minded
dialogue. But many admakers feel as trapped by slash-and-burn
campaigning as the hapless voters. "I hate going negative,"
says G.O.P. consultant Don Ringe, who is creating ads for
Senate candidates in Colorado and Hawaii. "But all of us,
Democrats and Republicans, are corrupted by the system."

    The underlying problem is the astronomical cost of
television time, which transforms each commercial into a
precious resource. Blanketing a major state like Florida with
just one 30-second spot runs about $250,000. "It's so expensive
to advertise," explains Democratic imagemaker Robert Squier,
who is working for Ann Richards in the down-and-dirty Texas
gubernatorial race, "that your whole campaign takes place in 3
1/2 minutes divided up into 30-second segments." And sad to say,
negative ads spark quicker and more dramatic movement in the
polls than where-I-stand issue spots.

    Cleansing campaign finance has stymied reformers for more
than a generation. But negative spots -- not PACs and pandering
to large contributors -- are largely responsible for public
cynicism toward politics. That is why it may be wiser to target
the attack ads themselves rather than the brutal cost pressures
that make them necessary.

    But how? Even defining offensive ads is a problem: What
political purists really object to the recent Louisiana spots
attacking Senate candidate David Duke for his KKK past?
Moreover, campaign strategy has become so sophisticated that
it instantly co-opts most reforms. This year, unlike 1988, most
major newspapers are carefully analyzing the factual claims in
campaign spots and publicizing outright untruths. The
unanticipated result: most negative ads are now a series of
carefully crafted factual sentences that point to an erroneous
conclusion. In Illinois, an artful Republican commercial
correctly charged that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Neil
Hartigan had been a director of a savings and loan that failed.
The ad neglected to mention that the S&L went under in 1968,
a decade before the current scandal. As G.O.P. consultant Don
Sipple, who produced the spot, says almost proudly, "Politics
is still a blood sport in Illinois."

    American politics is clearly in trouble, but it is hard to
imagine a short-term remedy beyond a sanguine faith in the
orneriness of the electorate. Even the most idealistic campaign
consultants are unlikely to renounce strategies that work. Few
serious candidates are quixotic enough to refuse to descend to
the level of their opponents' demeaning and deceptive attacks.
The best hope remains the classic free-market solution: a voter
rebellion against candidates whose tactics are an embarrassment
to democracy.