Gigolos on the Campaign Trail

by Walter Brasch

The presidential candidates, once promising eternal love to Iowa and New Hampshire, have deserted their betrothed faster than a gigolo ditching a plain rich girl for a plain richer one.

Together, Iowa and New Hampshire have less than 1.5 percent of the American population, but because the states figured out how to be the first in the race for delegates, and because there isn’t a lot to do in January, the candidates and the bus-bound media hordes saturated the two states with their personality-drenched presence.

Iowa was the first caucus; New Hampshire this week [Feb. 1] followed with its primaries. It doesn’t matter what the difference is between a caucus or a primary; only seven political science professors and a handful of backroom cigar-smoking party hacks under-stand the differences anyhow.

For three months, the candidates shuttled between Iowa and New Hampshire, and walked around the non-voting homeless to infiltrate every bar, restaurant, and fire hall, where they kissed babies, pumped the flesh, and dribbled campaign trinkets of every price category.

In Iowa, they ate corn and pork chops, and talked about the need to help farmers. If pigs could vote—the state has five times as many pigs as people—the candidates would have preached a doctrine of forced vegetarianism. In New Hampshire, the candidates slopped maple syrup onto their pancakes and talked about why government should stay out of people’s lives. By the time they waddle into Pennsylvania in April, they will be proclaiming that the perfect food is cheesesteak hoagies and that the Eagles really should have won the Super Bowl—if only they could have made the playoffs.

The voters not only had their own candidates who showed up at their front porches, they also got a side dish of puppy dog reporters prancing behind them to the coffee shop, factory, and bathroom.

Surrounded by the media horde who smugly said they were only telling the public what they needed to know to defend and preserve democracy—and the millions in advertising revenue—the candidates played to the press. In neatly packaged seven-second sound bites, politicians and the media sliced, diced, and crunched the campaign to fit onto 21-inch TV screens. For the voter, a few seconds of languid pontification on network TV was worth more than a “chit” for an overnight stay in the Lincoln Bedroom.

CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC cleared their schedules to give almost 24-hour coverage to the Iowa and New Hampshire campaigns, significantly more air time than all the news media gave to the Midwest flood of 1993 that caused about $20 billion in damage, and forced several hundred thousand out of their homes. By the Nov. 7 general election, each of the candidates will have spent about $275–325 million for advertising, the equivalent of the human resources and education budgets of a small country, or enough to help reduce poverty in America.

The TV media, with journalists an almost extinct minority among what passes as their news staffs, think the best way to cover the primaries is to display 10 seconds of a candidate’s visit to the Rotary Club luncheon, and then shove in another 45 seconds of public comments about the candidate who said the same thing at 10 different stops that day. The Iowa and New Hampshire voters were so media-savvy they didn’t even have to ask what slant the reporters wanted for their stories.

Print media reporters spent as much as five minutes with a potential voter, condensing the comments to fewer than 30 words. For variety, the reporters quoted not only each other but also the pride of pollsters who hover like trash-dump flies around political campaigns and the media circus. Because of an inner need to believe they matter, the media gave what seemed to be hourly reports about who was ahead, and by how much. And, several times a day, they eruditely declared that if Candidate X doesn’t do at least so much percent in the vote, then he’s finished, and if Candidate Y wins the election but doesn’t score at least so many points ahead of the next candidate, he’s also toast. But, should Candidate Z do “better than expected,” he’s “in the race” and “ready for the long haul.” Soon, all the voter had to do was to vote for whomever the media declared the winner.

At the moment, the media pundits are looking to Sen. John McCain and his Straight Talk Express—outspent 5-to-1 by Gov. George Bush’s campaign, yet which took the state in a landslide—to chug into the Republican nomination, assuming the Arizona populist isn’t detracted by the Dirty Tricks crew or someone else. But, just to make sure, the media have reserved an open slot for a dark horse candidate. For the Democrats, the media have anointed Vice-President Al Gore, who out-polled Sen. Bill Bradley in a strong come-from-behind victory. But, just to make sure they can never be wrong, the media pundits are holding out a possibility for Sen. Bradley to win the nomination if he can regroup and the Vice-President stumbles. Or, maybe someone else will show up. The guessing game will continue at least another month, and will resume during the conventions as the media waste our time trying to predict which nominee will, in pundit-speak, “win the White House.”

Like they did to their jilted lovers in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Republicans are now courting the voters of South Carolina, with a brief fling next week in Delaware. Three days after the South Carolina primary on Feb. 19 are the Arizona and Michigan primaries, followed a week later with the North Dakota, Virginia, and Washington primaries. For both Democrats and Republicans, Super Tuesday, March 7, with races in 14 states, will prove decisive to the candidates who can make love to an entire harem while leading each woman to believe she is the only one.

Most presidential candidates are good people caught up in the show that has become politics. Bathed by the media glow, and whispering sweet nothings to the masses, the warm-and-fuzzy presidential candidates have compromised their integrity for political expedience.

Perhaps, it’s time for Martin Sheen, who plays the president on the newly-inaugurated “The West Wing,” and Aaron Sorkin who writes and produces one of TV’s best dramas in years, to run our country. At least until the ratings slip, we’ll have more intelligence and honesty in fiction than we now do in the political process.

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