MIX OF ENTERTAINMENT WITH RETURNS WINS VIEWER VOTE : There Was No Lack of Choices, Drama, Suspense or Surprises on Election Night

At 9:28 p.m. Election Night, Rose Bird sat in her Los Angeles chambers in a mid-Wilshire court, talking to the live television cameras of Channels 2 and 7 about her lopsided defeat. The embattled Chief Justice of California’s Supreme Court was clear-eyed, sober-voiced and rather glamorous in a charcoal-gray dress and simple pearls.

“How am I taking this?” she asked, smiling broadly for a moment. “My answer is, ‘Just like a man.’ ” Then Bird, maintaining that she accepted the results “with a conscience at peace,” said it is “possible to have a house of justice, not a house of puppets, not a house of politicians . . . and, most importantly, not a house of death.”

Less than an hour later, Gov. George Deukmejian was at the Century Plaza happily introducing his mother Alice and saying he had just received a congratulatory telegram from from his challenger, Mayor Tom Bradley, when Channel 4 cut to Bradley at the Los Angeles Hilton, where he conceded defeat: “I want you to know the indomitable spirit of this old warrior will never say die.”

And, if you were still awake at 12:37 a.m. Wednesday, as fog rolled in over the Southland, you could watch GOP Rep. Ed Zschau on Channel 7 refusing, with good-natured humor, to concede the Senate race to incumbent Democrat Alan Cranston.

Hours earlier, both ABC and CBS declared Cranston the victor, and control of the Senate had long since seesawed back to the Democrats. But Zschau remarked: “As they say, ‘It’s not over till the candidate sings,’ and I’m not ready to sing yet.”

Once more, what a night for politics--TV style.

The campaign that had been slugged out in living rooms also ended there.

Having been subjected to all those 30-second spots, either exhorting us to “cast three votes for the death penalty” by voting No on Bird (and on Associate Justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph R. Grodin) or, to vote for “integrity”; having been urged to judge Cranston as a national treasure or as a coddler of terrorists; to view Zschau as a “breath of fresh air” or a wimpy flip-flopper, we, the voters, finally, got our turn to validate what we had wrought at the polls.

In these off-year, non-presidential elections, traditional wall-to-wall TV coverage may have gone down the tubes. But after a near-toxic-waste of a campaign, political groupies with a handy remote-control device could tune in on the returns almost without interruption. Nearly 12 hours of returns.

There was politics from 3 p.m. Tuesday when KCBS-TV aired locally until just about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, when ABC’s “Nightline” ended--the network promising to return in less than four hours with more.

“It’s 3 o’clock,” John Schubeck began Tuesday on Channel 2, “and there’s five hours left to vote,” while co-anchor Tritia Toyota chimed in, “Welcome to Vote Count ’86.” At the same time, Warren Olney was indicating that the big loser in this California election could be the voter turnout--the lowest in a gubernatorial election since World War II.

At 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, after KCBS had called it a night, KNBC and KABC were still in the fray, to be joined at midnight by Marcia Brandwynne’s newscast on KTTV. After 12:30 a.m., KABC had the political airwaves alone, and late-nighters could watch a lively debate between outgoing GOP Rep. Bobbi Fiedler, who this spring had Senate aspirations of her own, and commentator Bill Press, former director of planning and research for former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., over the meaning of the Bird defeat.

When California’s polls closed at 8 p.m., Schubeck, offering no surprises, said the station’s exit polls showed the Senate race was “too close to call”; Gov. George Deukmejian was handily reelected, and Bird would be overwhelmingly rejected. “The only nonstop election coverage in Southern California,” touted Toyota.

Meanwhile KCBS reported that Proposition 65 would pass, that Proposition 64, (the AIDS quarantine initiative) would be turned back and that Proposition 63 (making English the official language) would pass, raising questions, Schubeck said, of “exactly what that may mean.” On KCBS, an anti-64 supporter was ecstatic, remarking that the Lyndon LaRouche initiative was “stopped in California” before it made its way across the nation.

Nationally, CBS--and Dan Rather, wearing that familiar sweater vest--led off with the field to themselves. At 5:15 p.m. PST., while Rather was saying that Democrats--who had captured Senate seats in Florida and Maryland--had just taken North Carolina, KNBC and KABC were reporting on local murders. “Throw water on the fire, call in the dogs, call off the hunt,” Rather said of the North Carolina race where former Democratic Gov. Terry Sanford beat out GOP Sen. James Broyhill.

Rather won for pizazz--his language clearly the most colorful of the night.

At 6:30 p.m. PST, NBC came in with Tom Brokaw’s newscast, while ABC experienced, for a few moments, a technological sound glitch. The silent blue-and-white screen simply read, “The ’86 Vote.”

By 6:40 p.m. PST, with Democrats flourishing, Rather was saying, “It may not be too much longer before we know who controls the Senate.” But he withheld final judgment for two hours, until 8:38 p.m PST, when he projected Cranston the winner, even while noting that “Speculation in political reporting is as relentless as windshield wipers.”

At 7 p.m. PST, he said “It’s now the sweet hour of prayer for the Republicans.” And, while underlining the word possibility , Rather opined that Democrats might not only win the Senate, but that they “might come in with a fairly large winning majority.” Still he inserted a cautionary, “It’s not over yet.”

Ironically, shortly after 7 p.m. PST, Rather could also be seen on NBC’s “Entertainment Tonight,” explaining why he no longer signs off with “Courage.” He insisted that his wife, Jean, told him to get rid of it. “ ‘Honey, do it!’ ” he said she said.

At 8:07 p.m. PST, ABC had already interrupted “Who’s the Boss?” to project a Cranston victory. Earlier, at 7:32 p.m. PST, David Brinkley, in the midst of an interview with Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.), said that “it appears” the Democrats have gotten the Senate. Laxalt said he wasn’t buying that.

Meanwhile, ABC was bringing in the political celebrities, including a dour-looking Vice President George Bush, and Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-Kan.) who seemed to indicate that he would become Senate minority leader when the results were known.

“The Senate is the Rose Bowl,” Bill Moyers said on CBS. On ABC, a Cranston aide noted that minority whip Cranston would once again be the majority whip.

After all the flak over advance predictions and exit polls of previous years, the networks did not rush to judgment, appearing instead to bend over backward on the side of caution. At 10:30 p.m. EST, NBC and Tom Brokaw were still neutral on the Cranston-Zschau battle. And over at ABC, although Brinkley had done some predicting, Peter Jennings cautioned, “Bear in mind that the polls in California have not yet closed.”

Over at CBS, meanwhile, Rather more in statement than question to Bill Plante at the White House, asked if Plante wouldn’t agree that reports of a “funereal mood” there weren’t exaggerated. Plante simply responded that the White House was “trying to put the best face on things,” adding that privately the belief was that the best they could hope for was 50-50, with Bush breaking the tie in favor of the Republicans.

At 7:55 p.m. PST, ABC’s Sam Donaldson said that the White House is “marvelous . . . they’re not talking about the Senate, they’re talking about the governorships,” where the GOP fared much better. Also on ABC, columnist Tom Wicker was one of the first to suggest that a switch of party control might not bring great ideological change.

At 8:20 PST Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) said Democratic control of the Senate had “that unhappy look.” Then, in best best-face posture, Wilson said the Democrats would now have the “burden” of performance.

The night had its share of ironies. There was ABC’s Lynn Sherr, talking about how well women were doing in this election, commenting on the closing of the gender gap in politics, when David Brinkley came on. In New York’s Westchester County, he said, Bella Abzug had just lost.

Between 8:30 and 9:23 p.m. PST, if your preference was national returns, you tuned to CBS; if local, ABC. At 9:08 on Channel 2, you could catch Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the late Robert F. Kennedy’s eldest child, who had lost a House race in Maryland, indicating she would come back to fight another day. Her brother, Joseph P. Kennedy II, had long since beaten his Republican opponent for Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill’s seat in Massachusetts. “I guess it’s better to learn humility at the beginning of your political career,” Townsend said, “than at the end.”

On Channel 7, you could visit the winning toxic-waste initiative headquarters, peppered with Hollywood politicians like Jane Fonda, Michael J. Fox and Barbra Streisand. Meanwhile NBC, about to air “Crime Story,” was offering some fast returns; Channel 5 was showing “Rocky”; Channel 9 had the Lakers at Seattle; Channel 11 was into the second of its two Chuck Norris karate movies, and Channel 13 was airing the romance saga “Hold the Dream.”

As Denise Dean, director of news operations for Channel 11 put it: “I suppose the theory is that on Election Night you try and counter” what the network-affiliated stations are doing, “constantly bombarding you with returns. What the independents have learned is that people don’t stay tuned to that stuff.”

Or, do they?

In any case, Californians had lots of choices Tuesday night. And that, after all, is what elections are all about.