Handgun Control, an active special interest group, is obviously tickled pink that it could corral the president of the United States.
“Between now and Election Day, at least 2,000 Americans will die from gunfire,” the president says on the new television ad running in St. Louis, Cleveland, Milwaukee and here. “Should the next president be a candidate of the gun lobby? Should he have signed a bill that allows hidden handguns in churches, hospitals and amusement parks?
“Should he be someone of whom the NRA has said, that if he is elected, they’ll be working right out of the Oval Office? That’s Governor Bush’s record. Find out more at bushandguns.com. Somebody’s life may depend on it.”
Pretty direct, perhaps effective. But wait.
You’re not looking at President Clinton. No, you’re looking at President Bartlett!
Yes, the ad features none other than Martin Sheen, introducing himself but also looking suspiciously like his character on “The West Wing.” Gone is the left-leaning actor’s frequently informal attire, replaced by what seems suspiciously like his very establishment television duds.
It’s not that taking on his TV persona would in any way, shape or form influence anyone, right? Just because he’s on what some call the best show these days doesn’t mean that the role’s aura might rub off on a few malleable souls, right?
I wondered about that as I stared at the cover of George, the middlebrow political monthly founded by the late John F. Kennedy Jr. There was Sheen, dressed in character, and the other stars of the show (“Why the West Wing Will Rule Again No Matter Who is President”).
And there’s the new Rolling Stone, with Al Gore straining to look laid-back in a denim shirt (by Palace Costume), black T-shirt (Banana Republic), khakis (United Costume) and a not especially hip ‘do (“grooming by Natalie Miller for Cloutier”). There’s no mention of a certain bulge being airbrushed, which the gossip columns claim.
Then we have George W. Bush and Gore trying to out-outdoors one another in the pages of another magazine, Outdoor Life. “As an avid hunter and fisherman, I relate to your concerns,” says Bush. “I share in common with many Americans a great love for the outdoors, and a deep interest in preserving our nation’s natural resources,” says Gore.
So as Sheen sort of plays the president in the ad, and Gore dresses down to convince us he’s really Euell Gibbons in blue denim, the candidates also scurry to the daytime and late-night shows, each man proving as flexible as Woody Allen’s “Zelig.”
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Whether it’s David, Jay, Rosie, Regis or Oprah, they seek to take on the coloration of the host. They come equipped with top-10 lists, similar shirts (to Regis, in Bush’s case) and the too-slick-by-half attempts at self-deprecating humor.
They go on “Saturday Night Live” and make fun of their flaws. Each taped a segment in New York last week for Saturday night’s show, doing so before putting on white tie and tails and making fun of themselves and one another at a famous New York political dinner starring the new head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese there.
It is easy to find this all unseemly when it is possibly a positive, populist change in politics. Campaigns have become so maniacally structured and unrevealing, anyway, it’s good that a far larger, and in some ways different, audience than normal can spy the candidates in uncommon settings, where there is at least the remote chance of spontaneity.
You know, the campaign as cocktail party.
At minimum, it raises the question of what might be next. There’s always some next level. If even going on “Donahue” was a bit odd 20 years ago, we’ve come a long way with Regis and Rosie. Come to think of it, the likes of Gore and Bush may be a lot more inclined to show up in those venues, for obvious reasons, than on “Nightline” or “Meet the Press.”
When I asked John Maas, a Hollywood producer, his response Friday was to agree with my vision of presidential candidates going on prime-time entertainment shows.
“I think Bush needs to go on `Will & Grace’ to prove he’s a compassionate conservative and Gore should go on `JAG.’ Actually, Gore could go on `Frasier’ as one of his snobby friends, proving he knows more than Frasier or Niles about uninteresting details about wine. Or on wrestling to show how it’s done. Or `Titans’ to show Yasmine Bleech, Blech, or whatever the hell her name is [in fact, Bleeth], how to kiss.
“Actually, if Bush goes on `Will & Grace,’ then he and Jack can kiss and he really can take the title of compassionate.”
I then called Colin Greer, president of the New World Foundation in New York City and author of many books on education and culture. He comes from the political left and is a sort of Anti-(William) Bennett when it comes to his critique of society and the state of learning.
“The standards by which we judge politicians are now the ones we use for show business people,” he said. “Are they warm and cuddly, or tough like some radio host? What they know and offer is less and less in the forefront of our minds.”
Yes, it is all more populist and democratic; the more we see candidates, the better.
“But it also opens up the room for the danger of the charismatic celebrity” to hold great sway, Greer said. “Having the right `look’ to win is more important. It changes what smart, politically interested but not necessarily physically attractive people think of themselves.”
It’s why Greer is convinced that “Harry Truman couldn’t run for office today.”
Before you go, “Ah, c’mon, look at Illinois Gov. George Ryan, Sen. Barbara Mikulski or Dick Cheney and tell me that looks count,” be informed of a question I was asked by a graduate student from Ukraine last week.
“Why do your politicians look different than ours? Yours look like they’re from `Playboy.'”
Hmmm. Interesting query.
Is it possible that television has so altered the system that it cancels out many men and women who might have tried their luck a long time ago? And might those daytime and late-night shows, with their premium on being a nice guy, be having an impact not even discerned by organizations doing daily polling?
“That’s interesting and a reasonable hypothesis,” said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll. “We have no empirical data, not having asked people where they saw or read information about candidates. But people are exposed to more information. In the old days, they read the paper and watched Walter Cronkite. Now they may get information on `Politically Incorrect’ or Letterman.”
Gallup interviews 400 adults nationally every day during the campaign. The numbers it reports are estimates from the likely voters with the group. The so-called tracking poll it does with CNN and USA Today is aimed at measuring daily changes in the electorate, based, too, on its estimate of what the composition of the electorate would be if the actual election were held that same day.
I told Newport about the question from the Ukrainian woman.
“Maybe because we are more exposed to those [TV] values, likability is more important. That is an interesting hypothesis,” he said. “Perhaps it would be interesting to get photos of candidates at different levels from 40 years ago, and photos of candidates today, and try to get voters to rate their likability.”
When I reached him in Princeton, N.J., he was finishing new numbers-crunching with colleagues.
They aggregated all their polls taken from Labor Day to Oct. 3, the night of the first Gore-Bush debate, and then aggregated a second group, from Oct. 4 through last Thursday. Gore led 47-44 in those first 30 days, but Bush has led 47-43 since.
“The debates were very important,” Newport said. “The net advantage was to Bush, despite the initial expectations. It doesn’t mean he will sustain it, of course.”
If it looks like he is sustaining it, Gore should see if President Bartlett, I mean Martin Sheen, can sub for him for a few days.
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James Warren and Michael Tackett of the Tribune’s Washington bureau are hosts of “Unconventional Wisdom” at 7:05 p.m. Sunday on WGN-AM 720.