Television: Electronic Politics: The Image Game

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Other personality sculptors normally insist, with Guggenheim and Treleaven, that their role is supportive only, and that the candidate, not the playlet, is the thing. Occasionally there is a dissenting and disturbing voice of candor. Myron McDonald, formerly with Jack Tinker & Partners, the firm that created the widely applauded Alka-Seltzer commercials on television, has said: "We looked on the Governor [Rockefeller] almost as if he were a product like Alka-Seltzer." It had been a meeting of minds; Rockefeller's 1966 campaign manager,

William Pfeiffer, hired Tinker just because the Alka-Seltzer ads were so good. The firm is still doing Rockefeller's spots. Not only images but also their makers are sometimes flexible. In 1964, one of the West Coast's most important political management firms, Spencer-Roberts & Associates, helped Rockefeller pin an ultraconservative label on Barry Goldwater and his active backers, including Ronald Reagan. Two years later, working for Reagan, their first move was to try to remove the tag.

Abomination. If Spencer-Roberts hated and loved in successive elections, many politicians hate the idea of electronic spots even while they use them as heavily as their budgets allow. Goodell calls his own compressed viewpoints "ghastly things." Says Gore: "It's an abomination and I detest it," but he admits that he would not and could not do without it. Hart asks: "How the hell can you describe in 30 seconds why you think a volunteer army is necessary?"

Democratic National Chairman Lawrence O'Brien feels so strongly about spot ads that he hopes they can be outlawed. At the same time, his 1970 manual for Democratic candidates tells them to get the best media man purchasable, move him into "the center of your campaign." The manual notes that the favored medium of undecided voters is television and says: "We also know that these voters make up their minds about candidates using the following inputs: a) personality of the candidate (image), b) ability to do the job, c) issues."

The men who shape images on paid political commercials insist that the voter has an adequate protection against their arts in the appearance of the candidate on television news shows, interviews and debates. "We don't have to show the warts," Joe Napolitan says. "They'll come out in the unpaid. The paid and the unpaid are different." There is some validity to the claim, for instance, that the display of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's demagogic qualities is an example of television's ability to reveal the truth about a man.

Overcovered. Yet a curious and potentially dangerous interplay exists between the desire of candidates to get on news shows under favorable conditions and the desire of station managers to provide visually interesting news film. In his winning media campaign for New York's Democratic Senate nomination. Representative Richard Ottinger called so many news conferences, based on what television newsmen felt was solid research, that the New York City CBS outlet found that it had unintentionally been overcovering him. The coverage was deliberately cut back.