Media strategists have discovered that people won`t sit still for a 30-second political ad now that remote controls are available to click to other TV stations.
The solution?
The 10-second political spot.
”Unbelievably, politics in this country is going to be diluted down into a 10-second window, where you whack the guy as hard as you can and then get out of there,” says Illinois Sen. Alan Dixon, who is already thinking of what he will do to get re-elected in 1992.
”That is a frightful commentary on the quality of our political life, and it is to be deplored.”
Deplored. Yes. And, if it works, it will be widely imitated. Embracing what works is one of the marvels of the American politics.
For as many years as anyone wants to count and at every level, negative campaigning has been one of the heaviest weapons in the American political arsenal. Everyone decries its presence but justifies its use on the grounds that the real game in politics is victory.
And in the victory game, there is only one rule.
If it works, use it.
Is it any wonder then that American politics is in trouble?
Participation in the process through voting is declining. Elections have become big-dollar businesses. At every level, special interests use campaign funds to inject themselves into the process. Television has become so dominant it has pushed much of the old political structure aside.
At this most complex point in history, campaigns seem abysmally simplistic, often turning to sophisticated, televised name-calling instead of a discussion of the great issues that confront society.
The political parties seem to have lost the strong ideology that was so attractive to generations of American voters. Even the solid institutions of American government, Congress and the presidency among them, seemed demeaned by tone and mechanics of the political process.
How can this be repaired?
Of course, no one really knows.
It is not as though politics worked perfectly, say 10 years ago, and now it doesn`t. It took decades to reach this point, and even the optimists believe it might take decades for the situation to improve.
Craig Kennedy, president of Chicago`s Joyce Foundation, has been pondering the problem since February, when the foundation funded a conference to examine the state of health of American politics.
He said one overwhelming message emerged as the conference closed.
”We shouldn`t fool ourselves into thinking we can cure these problems overnight,” Kennedy said. ”This is a hearts-and-minds issue. It is not one that has to do with the rules and procedures of politics. And this is going to take some concerted effort.”
The push to reform American politics is a constant across history and a challenge so compelling today that political reform groups have become incorporated as institutions, a sad sign that the need for reform itself has become permanent.
Common Cause and the Committee for Responsive Politics, for example, relative newcomers, see campaign finance reform as the central issue of the day. The League of Women Voters has been working at every level for many years to distribute clear information that can help voters cut through the fog of politics.
But those groups aim their calls at the structure of politics.
Kennedy and some others believe the need for change is more profound and goes beyond the repair of separate parts of the system. They see it as a question that cuts to the very heart of American culture, to the society`s image of itself and what it represents.
”It is a problem of values,” Kennedy said. ”It`s not just the technical rules of the political game. There aren`t any single scapegoats. It`s not the media. It`s not the consultants.”
Television and its impact on American life alone raise seemingly insurmountable problems. Because we pay so much attention to it, politicians must use it. And because it is so superficial, it is not a good way to transmit complicated policy statements.
”When politicians use television or radio as a tool, they have to respect its conventions,” said Richard Hess, a communications specialist and professor at Indiana University.
”If, as they seem to be convinced, their best vehicle is through radio or television, if they make that commitment, then they commit to very brief, emotional statements.”
Changing that won`t be easy.
”The entertainment value of television is one of the dominant forces in society today, and it`s going to take a great deal of courage to violate those conventions,” Hess said.
Kennedy boiled it down to an even weightier demand.
”There needs to be a kind of a revival of spirit as much as technical change,” he said.
But how can a nation revive something as mysterious and difficult to define as its political spirit?
The same question may have been around during the sleepy years of the Eisenhower presidency, when a nation weary to death of war and threats of war seemed to click off many of its circuit breakers and go to sleep.
Until John F. Kennedy arrived.
Sueellen Albrecht now lives in New Albany, Ind., but for four years she was the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. She is the kind of person who comes to mind when the description ”Kennedy-era Democrat” floats into a discussion.
On Nov. 26, 1963, the day after the assassinated president was buried, she went to the Wisconsin Democratic State Committee and was given a $285-a-month job as a membership secretary. Politics became her passion. Before she got the party chair, she was vice chair, secretary of the board, administrative committee member and member of the party`s governing board.
”It was a terribly exciting time and those of us who were in that particular age group will never have a similar experience, ever,” she said.
”I haven`t tried to repeat it. I don`t know that it will come along again. You get older and more realistic. Maybe a bit jaded, although I hate to say it.”
Regardless of how anyone feels about John F. Kennedy, his presence so enlivened the Democratic Party, drawing armies of Sueellen Albrechts into the world of politics, that the inertia of Kennedy liberalism alone carried the Democrats for years.
The same process has happened at least several times in recent years within the Republican Party. Barry Goldwater may have driven the moderates out of the party, but he planted conservative seeds that delivered a tremendous harvest for Ronald Reagan many years later.
Individuals, in other words, can change political parties radically almost overnight.
But not with 10-second television ads.
There are also some perplexing contradictions within American politics that may hold signs of a brighter future.
Ken Janda, a professor of political science at Northwestern University, has been watching the American electorate for years, tracking its behavior against the behavior of voters and participants in the European democracies.
From his perspective, there is great potential for a revival of voter interest because Americans seem so active about every other part of politics. ”For all of these countries, if you take a look at voting, the United States is down at the bottom of that list,” he said.
”But if you take a look at other things, reading about politics, discussing politics with friends, signing petitions, working to solve community problems, the United States is way out ahead, way in front.
”On a whole series of conventional acts of political participation, Americans come out very well. . . . When we take a look at American political behavior, there is only one forum that Americans come out badly, and that is voting.”
Janda is convinced part of the problem is the process of voting itself, with its registration demands that change from state to state.
Ballots the size of Charles Dickens` ”Bleak House” don`t help either.
”In most countries, it doesn`t take much effort to vote. It doesn`t take much effort to vote in the U.S. either, but it takes a hell of a lot of effort to get registered,” he said.
The other problem is that American voters are asked to decide on
”everything that moves. If it moves, it is elected.”
He wonders why the electorate trusts presidents to appoint secretaries of state and attorneys general, but won`t give the same leeway to governors.
”We have this tremendous burden we put on voters when we go into the election booth,” he said.
Illinois` own recent elections are an example. Without tabulating all of the judges running for retention, Janda said he counted 46 separate decisions he had to make on Election Day.
Serious voters don`t like this process, he argues, and they don`t feel good about it after they have voted.
”You walk out of there and you say, `My gosh, I don`t know half of those people.` For a lot of people who have higher education, they develop higher expectations for themselves,” he said.
”And so voting in the United States becomes a threat to self-esteem.”
He and the Joyce Foundation`s Kennedy think that there is too much democracy afoot in America, particularly in California, where politicians and voters have transformed governing into a series of referenda.
”People sometimes have to understand that if the choices are made relatively simple and you trust the people you elect, you are really a lot better off than if you elect everyone and have little knowledge of it,” Janda said.
One of the more alarming statistics that is repeatedly cited in discussions about politics is the level of interest and participation among 18- to 24-year-olds. As a group, their key interests are entertainment and one political issue, abortion, which may have some impact on their lives.
Brian Vargus, director of Indiana University`s Public Opinion Lab says despite those indicators, he sees some signs of hope in the younger generation.
”It lies interestingly enough in the fact that at the same time a lot of young people are turned off, there is a growing radicalism among the young,” he said.
”It is there. It happened in the 1960s and it`s going to happen again. Whether it is going to be that they can`t afford a house or a change in the economy so that a college degree doesn`t buy them a $30,000-a-year job, something is going to do it.”
