The Exhilarating Dawn of Talk-Back Campaigns

Oh, what a tangled web politics and TV have woven in this election year.

With the Democratic National Convention unfolding next week, nothing has dramatized this entanglement more than the risky and exhilarating new era of TV talk-back campaigning.

It is adversarial, in-your-face truth or consequences. And it is historic.

Politics hasn’t changed, but technology has--and to the victor in understanding this will go the spoils.

The “Murphy Brown”-Dan Quayle flap may have seemed like a joke, but it wasn’t. Like him or not, Quayle knew TV fiction has social impact--and not only about unwed mothers.

Talk-back.

“Murphy Brown” does it with its political shots. Quayle counters. Candidates, viewers and talk-show hosts slug it out in lengthy cable and network Q&A; bouts that have made sound bites boring and idiotically inadequate.

On and off the screen, TV and politics seem more entwined than ever. And it is no longer just a case of a media-wise candidate like J.F.K. or Ronald Reagan dominating the scene.

Everybody wants to get into the act--and is. The public, deluged by prime-time frankness about sex, language and politics, is more hip to TV’s impact.

And the added hours of cable and phone-in shows make the political process far more accessible as candidates answer questions they never thought they’d have to handle directly from voters, one-on-one.

Off the screen, the battle is also joined. Example: While TV awaits next Thursday’s Emmy nominations, a different kind of list has been issued by L. Brent Bozell III, chairman of the conservative Media Research Center in Alexandria, Va., and publisher of the newsletter TV etc.

In effect, the list is the equivalent of provocative talk-back by the right to “the political agenda of the Hollywood left.” Never mind your politics--the point is that it takes TV and what it produces seriously.

Thus, we have from Bozell “the 10 most biased shows on television during the 1991-92 season” and his further assertion that “prime-time television is a bastion of leftist activism in the guise of entertainment.”

Topping his newsletter’s list is “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill,” named as “the most biased show of the year.” Bozell says, “ ‘Rosie’s’ liberal agenda is blatant and unapologetic.”

Other shows on the list are “A Different World,” “Murphy Brown,” “L.A. Law,” “Designing Women,” “Dinosaurs,” “Dear John,” “The Simpsons” and two TBS programs that were criticized for their environmental views, “Captain Planet and the Planeteers” and “One Child--One Voice.”

Other sample criticisms:

* The “Murphy Brown” series “attacked former President Reagan and took shots at the GOP. Abortion was promoted throughout the series’ opener.”

* “L.A. Law” was “probably the most outspoken prime-time series in terms of supporting a radical homosexual-rights agenda.”

* “Designing Women” put a “liberal political spin” on its headline-making episode that discussed the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings.

* “The Simpsons,” overall, “sends a liberal message to its young viewers.”

And so on.

And the liberal-conservative TV talk-back scene figures to take on more heat this fall when radio’s premier conservative talk-show host, Rush Limbaugh, launches a nationwide, late-night series that is expected to be carried in Los Angeles by KCOP Channel 13.

It is, however, the presidential candidates themselves who will leave the most vivid TV memories of this year of talk-back campaigning because of their outings on numerous shows.

And summing up their abilities in this frontier TV terrain, as the Democratic Convention prepares to start in New York, it is clear that there have been wide differences in the performances of the contenders.

The first thing is that both the Democrats and Republicans owe plenty to the once-ridiculed candidate Jerry Brown, who showed all the aspirants what the new, high-tech campaigning on TV and radio was all about.

Ironically, both Bill Clinton, the presumptive Democratic candidate, and Vice President Quayle seem most comfortable in the new world of TV politicking--perhaps, in great part, because they are both younger than President Bush and maverick Ross Perot.

Clinton, scrambling from an underdog position, has surely worked harder than anyone but Brown to understand TV talk-back and turn it to his advantage, whether before a young MTV audience or on a network morning show.

Going into next week’s convention, he is surely a better-equipped candidate for having to outline and defend his policies again and again on the TV talk-back trail. Win or lose, he at least seems to have well-thought-out ideas that he never tires of presenting with good humor.

He does not, however, have that very personal TV magic that meant so much to J.F.K. and Reagan.

But, then again, neither do Bush or Perot.

As for Perot, his excursions into the TV talk-back arena have had their moments--on such outings as CNN’s Larry King show and a “Today” interview with Katie Couric. But, possibly because of his lack of political experience, Perot has yet to fully master the need to be brief and direct answering questions from audiences on television, no matter how long the interview.

It is possible, of course, that he knows a lot more about what to do than he is letting on, but that he is playing a kind of TV possum because his personal style has won wide support.

As for Bush, he has not thus far ventured very deeply into the world of TV talk-back. He is, after all, the President and shouldn’t look as if he’s scrambling for position. If, however, the polls continue to send him bad news, he may have to plunge into the TV fray and risk all the protection and insulation of the White House in talking, no-holds-barred, with the common folk.

He’s actually quite good at give-and-take and in many ways is as natural on TV as any President has ever been. But what do you tell people who are out of work and other voters who may have lost faith? There may be tremendous TV dramatic potential in all this as the Republican Convention nears in August and Bush attempts to plead his case.

For many TV viewers, clearly no one candidate has yet captured their imagination. The cynicism about politics and politicians runs wide and deep, and far beyond the presidential candidates. It is as if viewers and voters all knew the refrain:

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

When first we practice to deceive!

Hit List of ‘Liberal’ TV Shows

“The 10 most biased shows on television during the 1991-92 season,” indicating that “prime-time television is a bastion of leftist activism in the guise of entertainment,” according to the conservative Media Research Center in Alexandria, Va.

1. Trials of Rosie O’Neill

2. A Different World

3. Murphy Brown

4. L.A. Law

5. Captain Planet and the Planeteers (TBS)

6. Designing Women

7. Dinosaurs

8. One Child--One Voice (TBS)

9. Dear John

10. The Simpsons