| Scene 11: Appeal to Self Interest
Would that have taken place without advertising? Could Madonna have got serious attention
without regularly shedding her clothing?? As unpalatable as political advertising is,
cleverly managed, it seems to have worked. The trouble is that more often than not --just
like the vindictive posters, and the propagandist news footage that Sri Lankans have been
repulsed by--it is poorly used, often as a substitute for thought. Bob Dole's handlers
didn't do anything different. He goaded, he stabbed, and he used everything he could, to
draw Clinton out, but although known for his quick-temper, Clinton's only repartee was in
challenging Dole to stick to the issues. Dole's approach was religiously consistent with
the polls (popularity ratings actually showed that 54% of the voters after the election
didn't think that Clinton was not 'honest), but the American public was not interested in
the character of the candidate. As in advertising, the prospect wants to know benefits,
not features, asking "what's in it for me"? Clinton appealed to their
self-interest, taking on seemingly inane issues such as school uniforms (now isn't that
familiar?), and teenage curfews; he lobbied for installing a 'V' chip in TV sets to block
violence, and offered tax credits to small businesses. By mixing these with big ticket
issues such as Medicare, and the Budget Deficit that spelled out the lofty 'New Covenant',
he planned, he said, to create an economy for ordinary people. Unwittingly, this Baby
Boomer was playing the mediaeval Every-man, and whether you liked the theatrics or not,
the sheer drama was compelling.
People hear what they want to hear. Production values can make or break a product launch
commercial. Besides, political ads cannot invent an image. They can only refine what the
media has played out. When George Bush was seeking a second term, his ad men tried to use
the formula of negative advertising that had worked well against Michael Dukakis four
years ago. Yet when they tested the commercials' storyboards with focus groups, they were
surprised to find that people were extremely resistant to negative messages about Clinton.
As writer Tom Rosenstiel observes in his book about how television changed American
politics, there were two factors at work. First, people were not prepared to believe bad
things about a governor from a small southern state. Second, Bush had been receiving the
worst press among his opponents--even worse than Ross Perot--because of the problems of
the economy. People were therefore suspicious about the negative content in the attack
ads. Since it was out of sync with what the media was relaying (one survey showed that
Bush had 199 negative mentions in the media, while Clinton only had only 27), they doubted
the statistics that attempted to prove Bush was the better choice. The Clinton ads, though
they occasionally forayed into attack mode, were largely positive in outlook. One tactic
included asking people to call an 800 (toll free) number for a copy of his economic plan.
It was a magic bullet because it not only showed Clinton had a serious economic focus, but
that he was willing to spend money to share those ideas.
The 'Brutus is an honourable man'
approach
The Republicans, too were putting together a formidable arsenal of election ammunition.
They knew the candidate wasn't their USP, but he had the fighter-pilot demeanour they
thought they would capitalize on. Sure he was old, but that to his handlers, could be
translated into 'dependable' (as opposed to the uncertainty of Whitewater), an icon of
'the good old days', and a vote for patriotism. One arm disabled during his war days, Bob
Dole arguably could go for the jugular, punching his favourite buttons of crime, drugs,
character and money: the time-honoured nuts and bolts of negative advertising. Clinton
once observed that "you define yourself by who you fight". Bob Dole would have
done himself a favour, had he understood that. He couldn't help looking old, if only by
comparison. Besides, he made the fatal flaw of harking back to the good old days, and
offering to build a bridge to the past--something the Clinton scriptwriters quickly turned
around.
In recent American political campaigns, negative ads have not been proven to be the
foolproof formula. George Bush tore through Michael Dukakis' clean image by running a
well-produced--though factually flawed--commercial about the Greek candidate's 'revolving
door' policy on crime. The ad had a custom made revolving door, and a cast of 75, dressed
up in prisoners' fatigues. The metaphor of the revolving door, depicted criminals on
furlough easily slipping in and out of a high security prison through this inappropriate
entrance/exit. Bush was suggesting that by electing a weak Democrat, dangerous criminals
put in jail would slip back into society, endangering the rest of us. The Voice Over said
of Dukakis :
" He vetoed the death penalty. His revolving door policy gave weekend furloughs to
first degree murderers, not eligible for parole. While out, many committed other crimes
like kidnapping and rape. And many are still at large. Now Michael Dukakis says he wants
to do for America what he's done for Massachusetts. America can't afford that risk."
Supers appeared supporting the Voice, saying " 268 Escaped" and "Many are
still at large." As an ad it stretched the truth quite a bit. (See sidebar 2 : "Lies, Damned Lies and
Campaign Ads"). Only 4 of the
prisoners had been murderers, and they were serving life sentences without parole. True,
268 prisoners had escaped, but that was over a period of 10 years. It was also not true
that 'many' were at large. Just 3.
Yet, it was this commercial that cast Bush as being tough on crime, with the added bonus
that it altered the earlier post-Reagan perception of Bush-as-wimp. The approach was not
new. (See sidebar 3 : 'Who
cast the first stone?").
Curiously, it had been then Senator Al Gore who had raised the issue of the furlough
program, questioning his Democrat opponent, Dukakis, in the primaries. Fear was a tactic
used before by Republicans in the 50s. Attempting to break 20 years of Democratic hold on
government, they compared the long rule to Hitler's hold on Germany.
Clinton on the other hand stayed away from the character-assassination styled ads in the
recent elections. It meshed with the 'family values' theme. In adopting the Mark Anthony
approach, he was able to speak of Bob Dole as an honourable man, and effectively execute
what the strategists commanded, throwing in the necessary jibes in his direction. The
Republicans were getting desperate.
Soon after the Big Republican convention in San Diego, a Republican phoned a studio in
London that created the well-known 'spitting image' puppets. The TV show had featured a
Clinton puppet which showed him smoking marijuana at Oxford -- a fact that Clinton had
openly spoken about on an MTV interview. The Dole campaign wanted that particular puppet
for a series of anti-Clinton TV commercials, but the studio declined. "Dole's gonna
lose this election", the caller is said to have lamented, "if we don't do
something dramatic."
Puppets or no, if Dole was a predictable loser, it didn't show. Like the warrior that he
was, he went on a 96-hour non-stop tour until the end, often losing his voice, and once
falling off a platform in the attempt to dislodge Mr. Cool. He attacked Clinton with a
passion, ignoring the fact that it was only increasing his opponent's popularity. Like a
nudist in a mosquito-infested swamp, Clinton couldn't have been more vulnerable. So why
didn't the Dole attack ads work? The better question is 'why didn't Clinton respond and
fight fire with fire'? Call it guerrilla marketing of the political kind. You could almost
see the discipline of his handlers at work. Mark Gearan, a White House deputy chief of
staff once observed : "half your battle is body language. Take it, smile, stand up
straight". And there was the ghost of Dick Morris who had goaded Clinton to ignore
the poison darts, and forge on. Or as is called in the jargon of politics, this was a
tactic of 'stonewalling'.
When Building a Bridge, hire an Engineer
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