No Money for Ads? No Chance in Race

I made the mistake of slumping into the Barcalounger and flicking on the TV this week, which is always dangerous in the middle of a political campaign. In one creepy ad after another, political candidates marched into my den like body snatchers, sapping me of the will to live.

Millions have been spent on distortion, simplification and insult, and may the best man win.

“A 30-second spot is, by its nature, distorting,” says Barbara O’Connor of the Center for the Study of Politics and Media in Sacramento.

But what about the candidate who can’t afford the price of distortion? Let’s say you’re not made of gold, like Dick Riordan and Bill Simon in the Republican primary. And unlike Gov. Gray Davis, you don’t climb out of bed every living day with your suit on and your hand out, looking to roll every Joe and his great-granny who cross the street.

How are you supposed to pay for the kind of TV ads that can manipulate human emotion, insult voters’ intelligence, and get the victory you’re after?

I saw so many ads for Dick Riordan and Bill Simon, each of whom could buy every minute of TV air time between now and election day, I began feeling sorry for lowly Bill Jones.

Jones, the secretary of state, might be the most solid candidate of the three. But that stands for next to nothing in a modern election. The critical issue is that Jones has spent only a fraction of what his opponents have on TV ads, and he’s so far back in the woods, he’s “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

Jones has got to take drastic action, I thought. If I were he, I’d set fire to a Riordan or Simon billboard and then lead police on the longest slow-motion car chase in California history.

“You should hijack a truck,” I told Jones by phone Tuesday as he left a fund-raiser in Visalia on his way to San Diego.

Jones told me he’d raised $40,000 in Visalia, which is a respectable haul. But Simon and Riordan could write themselves $500,000 checks with $40,000 pens.

A truck, I told Jones again. Hijack a truck or a white Bronco.

“Then I could demand equal time,” he said agreeably.

He wouldn’t have to. TV news spent more time covering Valentine’s Day than the months-long gubernatorial campaign, but give them a good car chase, and regular programming will be interrupted from San Diego to the Oregon border.

Jones was gamely telling me he’s going to pull this thing out, but he isn’t happy about being overshadowed by two opponents entirely on the basis of their wealth. And in that regard, he’s got more in common with voters than his opponents.

“The average person loses confidence in a contest that’s pay-to-play,” Jones said. “You’re really up against it when you’re running against someone as wealthy as Simon, who hasn’t voted in a decade.”

I’d disagree that the average person has lost confidence. The average person’s eyes have completely rolled back in his or her head. The average person is entirely cynical and tuned out, which explains why Barbara O’Connor is hearing forecasts of a 28% turnout on election day Tuesday.

For years, a guy named Paul Taylor has been arguing that if everyone is so thoroughly disgusted by a polluted system in which candidates beg for money, and public policy is for sale to campaign donors, we ought to seriously consider fixing it.

Campaign finance reform, which finally appears to be a possibility, is one of his causes at the Alliance for Better Government in Washington, D.C. But another has to do with the problem Bill Jones is looking at right now.

“If you stop someone on the street and ask who owns the airwaves, they’ll probably say CBS does, or NBC, or Fox,” Taylor said. “They don’t realize the public owns the airwaves.”

Taylor has been haranguing the government to require that in return for a broadcast license, TV stations offer more free air time for candidates and more coverage of the issues.

“Political campaigns are a cash cow for the TV stations,” Taylor said. And yet while they rake in millions on ads that distort the truth, they devoted on average about a minute per broadcast to coverage of the last campaign for governor in California.

“TV hates political coverage because they think viewers run from it,” he said. “But I think it ought to make for good television. You’ve got drama, competition, and some suspense, and even the most cynical citizens are smart enough to know this has some meaning to their lives.”

I still think Jones should hijack a truck.

As for you weary and cynical citizens of the republic, there’s one solution you might consider while waiting for the federal government to make TV news do the honorable thing.

Read a newspaper.

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Steve Lopez writes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at steve.lopez@ latimes.com.