Many people are of the opinion political campaigns are nastier, media coverage of them is declining and voters are tuning out the entire mess.
“That is an unhappy world,” said Paul Taylor, who is leading an experiment in Illinois and nine other states aimed at reversing the trend.
Taylor’s group, the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance for Better Campaigns, is working with the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a group headed by former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon, to persuade television stations and candidates to alter the way this fall’s campaigns are conducted and covered.
If the groups get their way, the state’s gubernatorial candidates would appear regularly in five-minute mini-debates on the nightly news.
Candidates would agree to appear in all their own TV ads to discourage them from running anonymous negative attack ads.
The media would provide more robust analysis of candidates’ ads. And third-party groups running ads during the campaign would disclose their major donors.
But the groups concede that they’ll probably have to settle for less in Illinois. And given their reception last week from Chicago television stations and the gubernatorial candidates, Republican George Ryan and Democrat Glenn Poshard, it might be much less.
“The reaction has not been overwhelming,” said Cindi Canary of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.
Added Taylor, “It’s going to be an uphill climb in the great state of Illinois.”
Ryan and Poshard remain cautious but willing to discuss the initiatives, their spokesmen said.
“They have terrific ideas, but nothing’s been firmed up yet,” said Poshard’s spokesman, Jim Merriner.
John Torre, Ryan’s spokesman, said, “I wish them lots of luck trying to get the stations to cough up the time in the middle of their newscasts. But the idea does intrigue us.”
The Illinois Broadcasters Association plans to discuss the group’s proposals Wednesday at its meeting in Peoria. Wally Gair, the association’s director, said most stations are already adequately covering campaigns but may be willing to consider the groups’ ideas.
“We have not taken a stand on anything yet,” Gair said. “But it’s interesting that they are talking about two minutes here and two minutes there. I don’t know if that is something broadcasters would be against. It’s similar to what they already do.”
Canary said her group, which earlier this year successfully pushed campaign-reform legislation through the General Assembly, will head Downstate next week in hopes of finding stations more eager to experiment with political coverage.
“I’m fairly confident we’re going to get a better response Downstate,” where the markets are smaller and less competitive, she said.
The groups are starting with the governor’s race because it attracts greater voter attention, but Canary said they may reach out to other state and federal candidates.
“There isn’t any pressure (for stations and candidates) to do this,” Canary said. “What we have to do is build the pressure.”
Any experiments that work this fall in Illinois, California, Florida or elsewhere will be tried nationwide in the 2000 election.
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“It’s a way to say to the people in the media culture and the political culture, `Hey, look, it’s not working,’ ” Taylor said. “We don’t pretend that this is going to be easy.”