Television: Electronic Politics: The Image Game

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WITH a mixture of awe, resentment and reverential hope appropriate for a demanding deity, scores of politicians are once again laying their treasure at the feet of television cameras in a biennial rite of electronic personality adjustment. Victory is the goal. The byproduct could be a constructive discussion of America's problems, but it has increasingly become a contest of bank accounts and artful contrivance.

In no other Western democracy has television become so dominant a factor in politics. Congress this month is expected to pass a long-debated bill, aimed at controlling some aspects of the phenomenon but leaving others untouched. Even as they legislate, many lawmakers are campaigning and spending—and the expenditures themselves have become an issue in some contests.

Rich and Sick. It is close to impossible for a man to enter a TV-dominated race for major office without money; he must earn it, inherit it, or acquire it through the donations of special interests. Without it, the door to the television studio closes in his face with the finality of a bank vault.

When he has money, a candidate can use it to manufacture an instant public presence. That effect can be salutary: it is a unique way to bypass political party organizations and challenge entrenched incumbents. But in the process, the techniques of political image makers often work in the service of distortion—slices of life that belie real life, conversations that never took place, facial appearances as cosmetic as Hollywood's, life-and-death issues disposed of in ten seconds. In the extreme hypothesis of Writer Richard Goodwin, once an aide to the much-televised Kennedys, TV is a way in which "you could run a candidate who is maybe in a mental hospital." Even if you did, he would have to be rich as well as sick.

The cost of modern campaigns has grown to enormous proportions. In 1968, America's candidates spent almost three times as much to win office—$300 million—as Congress appropriated this year for education of the handicapped. Television and radio costs were by far the largest single component of the total. According to reports filed with the Federal Communications Commission, the cost of air time alone in 1968 was $58,888,101. In addition, producing and promoting what appeared on the air cost perhaps another $20 million. FCC figures show that political spending for television and radio quadrupled between 1956 and 1968, though the price of air time increased by only 21 times. In this nonpresidential year, the best-informed but rough guess puts total candidate spending at $150 million, with about $63 million going to the electronic media campaign.

Recognition Factor. Multimillionaire Florida Businessman Jack M. Eckerd spent $1,000,000, a third of it on TV and radio, to reach a runoff election for the Republican gubernatorial nomination; Nelson Rockefeller will spend either $1,500,000 or $2,500,000—depending on whether one accepts his figures or his opponent's—to stay in Albany. Norton Simon spent $1,300,000 in a quixotic attempt to become the Republican candidate for United States Senator from California. Howard Metzenbaum found out how much it costs to take a Senate nomination away from former Astronaut John Glenn: nearly $500,000.