Ads Tell Truth, but Not Whole Truth

Reality matters, even in politics. There will probably be more pointed lessons on this theme as the 1998 elections near. But for now, there are two distinctly different reminders that in politics, what you see is not necessarily what is.

Along the Central Coast, voters in the 22nd Congressional District have seen weeks of radio and television ads--with weeks more to come--sponsored by advocates of term limits. Although you wouldn’t know it from the ads, only one candidate in the race is committed to voting for term limits. Politics being politics, that candidate is being slammed by term limits advocates.

Elsewhere in California, the U.S. Senate campaign of multimillionaire Darrell Issa is running ads skewering other political ads that feature candidates walking along the beach--an innocuous stock piece of political marketing.

“Politicians walk on the beach so much, you’d think they were running for ‘Baywatch,’ ” Issa says in the ad, referring to the TV show with the scantily clad lifeguards. “I’m running for the United States Senate. I’ll skip the beach and tell you what I’ve done.”

Neither of the two candidates shown walking on the beach, however, is running for the U.S. Senate. One of them, fellow multimillionaire Al Checchi, is running for governor. The other surf daddy, the intensely buttoned-up Leo McCarthy, last graced a ballot in 1992 when he was running for the U.S. Senate.

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To be sure, neither the Issa nor the term limits ads are specifically fibs. Nor, by ad standards, do they particularly stretch the truth. According to political scientists, they fall within acceptable standards. That they do--and still could serve to mislead people by implication--says much.

The more peculiar are the term limit ads. Some background: Competing in the 22nd District race to replace the recently deceased U.S. Rep. Walter Capps are his Democratic wife, Lois, and Republican Assemblyman Tom J. Bordonaro Jr.

Recently, term limits organizations asked each to sign a pledge to serve no more than three terms in Congress. Capps agreed. Bordonaro declined. That set off rounds of ads that will culminate in the March 10 runoff.

“Who is it that stands alone, opposing your clear voice for term limits?” asked one radio ad paid for by U.S. Term Limits, a Washington-based advocacy group. “Career politician Tom Bordonaro.”

The reality is somewhat different. Bordonaro, a rancher until his 1994 election, supported Proposition 140, the California term limits law. He says that he would support “any and all” term limits laws that come before him in Congress. But he refuses to sign a pledge limiting his own terms on the argument that it would be foolish for California to unilaterally give up seniority unless other states are required to do so.

Lois Capps, on the other hand, opposed Proposition 140. She told The Times’ George Skelton that she opposes mandatory term limits but felt that for her--currently age 60--three terms would be enough. She admitted that she might feel different if she were 20 years younger.

Her campaign spokeswoman, Lisa Finkel, refused to say whether Capps would sign a term limits law, saying that she would “consult with the people in her district.” But Capps has indicated that she believes such a law would be unconstitutional.

The term limits advocates see nothing strange about siding with Capps. This year, assuming that term limits laws would never pass, they ditched their traditional alliance with those who pledged to vote for such laws and decided to side only with those who voluntarily limit their own terms, even if they oppose term limit laws.

“We want to keep it simple,” said Eric O’Keefe, whose Americans for Limited Terms will pump in $185,000 in ads into the 22nd District race in coming weeks. “We’re trying to build a citizen legislature one representative at a time.”

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Even with the ads, term limits has not become the congressional campaign’s burning issue. Similarly, the Senate race has yet to rumble over candidates plundering beaches.

What Issa’s ad seems to be saying is that, as a businessman making his first bid for elective office, he is not like the politicians whose oxes he gores. Never mind that he isn’t running against either of those in the ads, or that one of them is a fellow political neophyte.

Still, the ad is open to interpretation.

“Audiences take messages and construct their own meanings in them,” said Ann Crigler, director of USC’s Jesse Unruh School of Politics and an associate professor of political science. “It could be by knocking candidates walking the beach that he’s subtly knocking environmental efforts . . . or these guys could be anti-vacation.”

There is an irony, notes fellow USC associate professor James Beniger. “He’s now creating an image that’s no more substantive than walking on the beach,” he said.

The Issa campaign eschews any grand plan. That ad was meant to be “light-hearted,” said Issa spokesman Matt Cunningham.

So what did the campaign mean to say about Issa, who is using a chunk of his $250-million fortune to propel himself to the Republican nomination?

“That he’s not the usual California candidate,” Cunningham said. “That he’s just a regular guy.”