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The Courtship of the MTV Voter : Television: Those involved in ‘Facing the Future’ hope viewers will be inspired by the Clinton session to register and vote.

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

The channel of Madonna and “Yo! MTV Raps” transformed itself this week into a 90-minute oasis of sober reflection about the future when Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the all-but-crowned Democratic presidential nominee, listened to the worries of some 200 young people and then tried to persuade them that he is their man.

Sure, there were the requisite moments of frivolity during MTV’s “Facing the Future With Bill Clinton.” One young man asked Clinton if he would inhale if he had his experiment with marijuana to do over again, while a young woman wanted to know his astrological sign (it’s Leo). There were a few unrestrained hisses at the mere mention of a likely Clinton opponent, Ross Perot. And Clinton, during a commercial break, prompted a burst of laughs when he twirled like a model and said, “How do I look?” after his makeup person powdered his face.

But mostly, the MTV crowd behaved like a bunch of churchgoers at their confirmation ceremony, eschewing the catcalls, posing and woof-woof-woofing that are staples of youth TV. This is supposed to be the generation that doesn’t vote, that is most alienated from politicians and the political process, but the substance and passion of their questions impressed several observers on hand to witness a presidential candidate taking MTV and its young audience seriously for the first time.

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“I don’t think people would necessarily expect MTV viewers to have such substantive questions,” said Tabitha Soren, MTV’s 24-year-old political reporter, who moderated the question-and-answer forum with CNN’s Catherine Crier.

But Soren added that everywhere she has gone during her six months covering the presidential campaign for MTV, she has witnessed the passion that young people have for the issues that most affect them, but which they have never had the chance to express in a meaningful way.

Linda Douglass, political reporter for KNBC-TV Channel 4, who was there to cover the event, expected some “penetrating” questions that no one had asked Clinton before.

Indeed, one 24-year-old, who volunteered that he had contracted the AIDS virus through unprotected sex in high school, implored Clinton to make condoms available in junior high and high school. He told the candidate that he didn’t have time for politicians and community groups to sit around and debate morality. “I have the virus. I can’t wait any longer,” he said.

Following up a question about permitting gays and lesbians to serve in the military, Soren asked Clinton why laws in Arkansas still made it illegal for two men to have sex. And Denise Munro, 25, pinned Clinton down on his record on abortion, forcing him to explain why he signed a law requiring parental notification before minors can obtain an abortion.

“This was one of the most educated questions of the entire campaign, shaming even the journalists who have never gotten that specific with Clinton,” said Steve Barr, co-founder of Rock the Vote, an organization funded by the music industry that works to register young voters. “Instead of all these fluff-ball questions and fluffy answers, they’re really getting into some of the real issues that concern young people. It wasn’t like, ‘I’m concerned about paying for college’ and he said, ‘I’m the education president.’ He gave very specific answers, and that’s what young people are starved for and why they’re turned off from the system. No one has ever talked to them.”

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For this first forum with presidential candidates, MTV clearly stacked the deck. The music network canvassed area colleges and activist groups asking for participants who “had a passion about an issue and a question you really wanted to ask,” according to Judy McGrath, MTV’s vice president and creative director. The vast majority of the audience was college students, many of them studying the arts, prompting even some MTV officials to concede that the group was a little “bourgeois.”

When the young people gathered for a rehearsal the day before the event, Soren said that MTV realized there were too many college students and rushed out to find some other kinds of people. McGrath said that a few people older than MTV’s core audience of 18- to 24-year-olds made it into the audience, but some in their late 20s and early 30s were rejected, despite their proposals of astute questions.

“We tried to get mostly 18- to 24-year-olds because that is the largest bulk of our audience and those are the people who are not voting,” McGrath said. “What we have to offer America and Bill Clinton is the opportunity to talk to young people who are just starting their lives and are faced with a lot of tough things in this country.”

These young people, however, seemed to represent the minority segment of their peer group that is involved and is voting. Quick interviews with a handful of participants following the taping revealed that all of them were registered to vote and nearly all of them had voted in the California primary.

Still, all concerned thought that the more-apathetic, unregistered MTV fans sitting at home would be inspired by the program to participate in the electoral process.

“It brings it to our level,” said Kymberly Jeffries, a 23-year-old art student, who asked Clinton during the telecast whether he believed Anita Hill or Clarence Thomas. “Usually all we ever see on TV is politicians talking to a bunch of gray heads. But seeing people like ourselves talking to him, seeing him interact with us, will definitely encourage them to make a difference with their vote.”

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“This is the raw candidate and that can penetrate some of the cynicism,” said KNBC’s Douglass. “Young people have never voted in large numbers. It doesn’t seem relevant to them . . . but this may make them feel more responsible. If kids can really sit down for an hour and really listen to any of these men, then they will feel more of a sense of responsibility to participate.”

Soren said that the sheer novelty of a presidential candidate answering questions in a place generally reserved for music videos and commercials will encourage the 15 million young people who MTV claims watch each week to pay attention. She said she has no proof that MTV’s political coverage this year will prompt any young person to vote, but she cited market research and her own anecdotal experience on the campaign trail to insist that the audience is listening.

“The research had people quoting from Paul Tsongas’ ‘Economic Call to Arms,’ something they didn’t even know existed before we did a piece on him for the New Hampshire primary,” she said. “We are being a catalyst, I think, for them to seek out other sources of news--whether that be the New York Times or CNN or Tsongas’ book. Whatever it is, they are more informed, more involved and hopefully that will get them to register and vote. I can’t hold a gun to their head and force them to do it, but that is certainly the aim.”

MTV executives were delighted with the program and have extended invitations to both President Bush and Perot for appearances in similar forums. But even if they don’t accept, it is clear that what was once just a flashy collection of promotional videos designed to sell records has the attention of at least one politician.

When a 22-year-old member of the audience said that while it was great for Clinton to come courting the MTV vote, he wanted some kind of assurance that the candidate would not simply abandon these young voters once he is elected, Clinton promised: “I’ll come back on MTV as President.”

Play It Again, Bill

The town hall meeting with Gov. Bill Clinton, part of MTV’s “Choose or Lose” election coverage, is scheduled to repeat on the cable music network today at 10:30 p.m., Friday at 9 a.m. and Saturday at 7 p.m.

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