Television: Electronic Politics: The Image Game

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More than 100 different firms are handling some aspect of campaign management this fall. Are the candidates getting their money's worth? No scholarly empirical evidence exists that clearly shows the direct influence of electronic campaigning—beyond the recognition factor—on how a vote is cast. A leading researcher in the field of public opinion, Dr. Paul Lazarsfeld, speculates that TV campaigning may make a difference with less than 1 % of the voters. Practicing politicians, however, read election returns in place of scholarly research. Perhaps the most startling evidence they have seen was the Alaska election in 1968, when Mike Gravel, then a relative unknown, challenged Incumbent Ernest Gruening in the Democratic primary. On a Saturday a week before the voting, a poll showed Gruening ahead 2 to 1. On Sunday, a heavily promoted film, prepared by Political Consultant Joseph Napolitan, ran on television. On Monday, a new poll showed Gravel ahead, 55 to 45. He then won by that margin.

TV, of course, did not originate political salesmanship. Portraying politicians in the best possible light is as old as politics, and many of today's ploys are merely electronic adaptations of old-fashioned tactics. But TV has the power to magnify mummery beyond the wildest huckster's dream of a generation ago. Political advertising frankly approximates product advertising, merely substituting candidate for product. More and more it makes its appeal with the tactics of commercial advertising—with spots of less than 60 seconds on shows calculated to have the right viewers for the pitch. In New Jersey, where Republican Nelson Gross is running for the Senate, his managers know that he has a problem with blue-collar votes. They are considering placing his ads on broadcasts of Yankee games.

Wife-Beating. Between 1964 and 1968, the money spent on spot political commercials more than doubled, while expenditures for longer productions stayed the same. Even a minute-long appearance by a candidate worries some managers. Jim Bertron, campaign manager for Republican William Cramer in Florida, thinks a 60-second spot could become refrigerator-visiting time. "You've got to grab them with those thirties," he says.

The techniques of spot-making vary with the needs of the campaign. This year, viewers in Illinois will hear Republican Senator Ralph Tyler Smith ask wife-beating questions in his spots, devised by James & Thomas, Inc., a Chicago ad agency, for his campaign against Adlai Stevenson III. "Why doesn't Adlai Stevenson speak out against busing? . . . What has Adlai got against the FBI?" the ads ask. In New York, the screens show Nelson Rockefeller in at least half his spots, something they did only rarely when his popularity was at a lower level four years ago.