Frank Greer has a Power View.
In a city of stunted office buildings, his eighth-floor balcony looks out over the Potomac River and downriver to the Watergate and the Kennedy Center. Planes following a flight path to National Airport cast shadows on the water, and helicopters, including those from the presidential fleet, scoot by almost at eye level.
But Greer’s office sofa and wooden rocking chair are not turned to the panoramic view. Instead, this master of political advertising is paying attention to a TV monitor and savoring the nine-second attack on a Republican candidate that he has carefully imbedded in one of his clients’ 30-second political commercials.
Greer, who dresses in media mod-jeans, boots, dress shirt and blue blazer-was working several races, from Florida to Washington state, right down to election day, and talking with a manic energy about the dynamics of this year’s races.
“It’s this vicious cycle, the more negative it gets, the more cynical the voters get,” says the Democratic political consultant. “The more cynical the voters get, people in my business believe, the more negative you have to get to break through the cynicism.”
Several blocks away at Interface Video Systems-a TV production studio in the basement of a glass and chrome office building-Don Sipple, one of the hottest Republican consultants, is speaking the same language. He too talks politics as if on a caffeine buzz.
For all the election ads that are shot in the farmlands and on the streets of hundreds of American cities, it is in Washington that the largest fraternity of consultants plot strategies and images.
If Washington is a political Oz, these are the men behind the curtain who make the politicians seem more omniscent-and often more humane and kind-than they really are. They are the groomsmen of our political horseraces and a staple of U.S. political culture. For their efforts, consultants usually receive 8 to 15 percent of the total amount spent to buy media time, in addition to other fees and expenses.
Sipple, who is producing ads for Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar this election, as he did in 1990, was one of the “three amigos” of George Bush’s 1992 campaign. In the presidential race, Sipple, Mike Murphy (now working for Virginia’s Republican Senate candidate, Oliver North) and Alex Castellanos, were also were described as the “rock and roll Republicans.” Sipple has the lean and loose manner of someone younger than 42 and he favors open neck shirts and jeans.
Greer, 47, has a more restrained look, and he also has an edge. He was Bill Clinton’s main consultant early in the 1992 campaign.
Although often viewed as political hitmen, these media advisers are intensely loyal to present and former clients. For instance, according to a close friend, Greer turned down a very lucrative offer to work against the president’s health care initiative earlier this year.
`Biggest eye-opener’
Last spring when he was preparing commercials for California Gov. Pete Wilson, Sipple discovered what he calls “the biggest eye-opener and the biggest gift I got this year.”
It came during a focus group session in the San Fernando Valley when he showed two versions of a commercial he made about Wilson’s hard-line position on cutting off key public services for illegal immigrants.
The first 30-second spot used just Wilson’s words; but the second included 10 seconds of his opponent, Kathleen Brown, and several awkward comments she made in a speech about immigration.
The latter spot “was powerful, it was much stronger,” says Sipple as he lights another cigarette in the small video viewing room. “In this era of cynicism, you create the context on a relevant, specific issue, and let (the voters) know this (candidate) compared to that (candidate), because that’s what it comes down to, X compared to Y.”
These attack-mode comparison ads are also the ones that have so many voters disgusted at all candidates, both incumbents and challengers.
“You have crime, you have insecurity, and you have real cynicism, real anger at the political process,” says Greer. “It’s not just incumbents, it’s that all politicians are suspect, all political campaigns are disgusting. It’s become very negative.”
Those ads are, nonetheless, in fashion. And candidates are eager to release any negative statement ever made or thought about their opponent.
Sipple, who cut his political teeth on Missouri Republican politics in the 1980s, spent most of the previous year looking for issues and mood, using more focus groups than polling, and relying heavily on his own personal interviews.
Making candidates likable
That research pays off, says Sipple, who recalls the 90-second “picnic” ad made with Edgar’s relatives and friends early in the 1990 Illinois governor’s race. In post-election questioning, voters said that particular ad gave them a new picture of the former Illinois secretary of state and made them inclined to vote for him.
Sipple, a bit of a maverick on the GOP side, believes the tone in 1994 is much more stark and policy driven, although character is still the driving force behind most choices. As pollster Robert Teeter once said, people vote for the candidate they like.
All of Sipple’s Republican gubernatorial candidates for governor, including Edgar, California’s Wilson, and the former president’s son, George W. Bush, in Texas, have armed their campaigns with tough anti-crime themes.
“Crime,” Sipple says. “They’ve had enough, it’s really shown up in their back yard, everybody has anecdotes. It’s happened to a family member, it’s in the suburbs. The whole rise of juvenile crime is probably one of the new dimensions people are focusing on.”
Throughout this campaign season crime has been the No. 1 issue, Greer agrees, fast-forwarding his tapes so the room fills with chipmunk-like video sounds. “But it has been a changing issue, I believe, because at the outset of this year it was lock them up, throw away the key; tough talk and who could be tougher.” Now, he believes there is more sophisticated discussion of alternative measures.
Greer cued up an ad for his Florida candidate, Gov. Lawton Chiles, running against presidential offspring Jeb Bush, in which a woman uses exactly the same language as an anti-gun control advocate to explain why she doesn’t want the government interfering in her personal life and her right to choose abortion.
Instant retaliation
Nimble in the age of attack and counterattack, Greer has a reputation for being very, very quick on responses. In the last two weeks of the Florida campaign, Bush unleashed a negative ad suggesting Chiles was lax in processing the execution of a convicted murderer, a claim that was not true. Within 24 hours, Greer turned what could have been a damning charge that Chiles was soft on crime into a plus, with an ominous message that if Bush couldn’t be trusted on life and death issues, who would want him to make decisions for the state.
Despite ideological differences, Greer and Sipple both say it is important to keep campaigns specific to the candidate and the state, and let national trends take care of themselves. As other Democrats and Republicans learned in the last month when they tied their races directly to the president’s fluctuating popularity, that can be perilous.
In many congressional races, issues such as the economy, education and the environment simply were not hitting the passion button, although questions about the welfare system create those “moral imperatives” that are favored this year.
And this year’s Senate races, both men agree, the themes are even more symbolic.
“It’s anti-Washington, it’s congressional reform, it’s throw the rascals out, it’s really anti-institutional campaigns,” said Greer, he called up another commercial.
The process of getting candidates elected to public office is not only about money, but technique and perhaps art. As the political ad appeared on the screen, Greer continued talking about the dynamics of that particular governor’s race.
But once the nine-second comparison with the opponent began, Greer checked his watch and listened, as if with a musician’s ear. He pointed to the monitor as the candidate reappeared, precisely at the 26th second, and the unseen announcer brought the message home.
