Abe Lincoln a Hit in the TV Age? Honest

Homely Abe Lincoln would have no chance if he were running for President in the television age.

Wrong. That was the old common wisdom. The new common wisdom is that if TV appeal were the determinant, Lincoln would win in a landslide.

Attribute that to the advent of so-called “new” media, the electronic town halls and TV talk shows of the 1992 presidential election season that shifted attention from the powerful news programs and newspapers that had driven national campaigns for at least two decades.

The result? A redefining of the communications skills required of serious contenders for the White House in the ‘90s, and a blueprint for governing in part through gab.

And Lincoln? He was a relentless spinner of folksy anecdotes who liked to pull out a jackknife and fiddle with it when telling a story. He was a legendary self-deprecating humorist who once answered a charge that he was two-faced by asking: “If I had another face, do you think I’d wear this one?”

Woe-struck eyes. Giant beak nose. Hollow cheeks. Massive jaw. A pinup boy he wasn’t, but no matter. Picture this guy sitting opposite Larry King--taking calls from Gertie from Peoria and Joe from Jersey--and you get the message.

The camera would love Abe.

Larry would love Abe. Phil would love Abe. Arsenio would love Abe. Even MTV would love Abe. Meeting him through TV, most Americans would absolutely love Abe.

There’s a lesson here, one that was learned in 1992 and continues to resonate. Ross Perot proved that being suave or beautiful isn’t a prerequisite for having epic TV clout as a presidential candidate. Nor were Bill Clinton’s polish and good looks the essential communications nutrients that helped earn him the White House. What he and Perot had--and wielded brilliantly--was something that proved crucial to their campaigns: a chatty ordinariness hard to discern from sound bites and sight bites but perfectly tailored to the theater of the “new” media.

Call it TV populism.

They also had the foresight to exploit the public’s mistrust of institutions, a strategy to bypass the leering gargoyles of the traditional media--some of whom cynically tend to denigrate all candidates under the guise of analysis--and instead speak directly to Americans through other media. Very, very smart.

Electronic town halls were hardly novel in 1992. Nor were MTV (where both Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, appeared with young people during the campaign) and television talk and call-in shows, specifically “Larry King Live,” which for years had been CNN’s most prominent program.

What was stunningly new was the extent to which major candidates embraced these forums as a means of humanizing themselves and communicating directly with the public.

Just how did Larry King evolve into someone George Will titled “the master of ceremonies of the 1992 campaign,” becoming the godfather of Perot’s maverick bid and getting the three major presidential candidates and their running mates to make a combined 17 appearances on his CNN show?

King explains this shift of media influence in “On the Line,” his just-published memoir of the 1992 campaign that was written with Mark Stencel: “The public saw the traditional press as snide, frenzy driven trivializers who were contributing to the erosion of their democracy.”

The prospect of future candidates largely circumventing the regular press is something that King worries about in “On the Line.” Talk shows, he says, “should supplement the campaign press, not replace it.”

Although many in the traditional press initially resented being stiffed--arrogantly insisting that only professional journalists were qualified to quiz presidential candidates--events proved them wrong. King notes, for example, that his callers often asked candidates more substantive questions than did journalists. And there was something refreshing about seeing candidates expound on audience-participation shows without being constantly second-guessed by reporters and pundits.

Yet whether the candidates were being as genuinely populistic as they were opportunistic is debatable, for they knew that they could appear on “Larry King Live,” for example, without getting so much as singed by the amiable host. And if a caller did slip in a tough question, King was unlikely to pursue it aggressively.

King is nothing if not honest about his skills, and his refusal to portray himself as an all-knowing Solomon is one of his most endearing qualities. “The truth of the matter is that I am not a journalist,” he writes. “I have never claimed to be. I’m an interviewer, a TV and radio personality--an entertainer. I’m no Ted Koppel.”

Koppel would endorse that. Yet like it or not, when interviewing a presidential candidate or other newsmaker, King is thrust into the role of surrogate journalist, and rejecting that mantle conveniently allows him to also disclaim the responsibility that comes with it.

There’s an inherent doughiness to a show that is entertaining but can sustain itself only if the host is so gentle with celebrity guests that they are willing to return.

That so many presidential candidates are keen to return bodes well for King as a talk-show giant but not necessarily as a devil’s advocate processing information for an electorate. He’s right about the “new” media and the campaign press. Both are needed.