Taking sides?

The first thing almost everybody says about Jay Leno is that he’s “nice.”

He visits old friends in the hospital. He brings his new state-of-the-art motorcycles to local hangouts to the delight of fellow bikers. He gives out free tickets to “The Tonight Show” to star-struck autograph hounds.

So, what’s a nice guy like this doing in the murky sludge of power politics? A Washington, D.C., think tank is monitoring his joke output. Political watchdogs are scrutinizing his relationship with the newly elected governor. And whether he likes it or not, America’s leading late-night talk show host finds himself on the leading edge of the merger of politics and entertainment.

A stand-up comedian who started out joking about cars and girls in the Ed Sullivan era, Leno served as a key conduit for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial campaign, ranging from the “Tonight Show” announcement of Schwarzenegger’s candidacy to Leno’s introduction of the governor-elect at his victory party.

NBC executives defended that appearance as a personal decision, and for his part, the country’s top late-night comedian has avoided serious questions about his increasingly powerful role as a funnyman who’s become part of the political process. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

According to recent surveys, 10 percent of Americans -- and nearly half of those under 30 -- now use the late-night shows as sources of news about politics. “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” with roughly 5.5 million viewers, leads “The Late Show With David Letterman,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” When a Leno guest says or does something newsworthy, millions more see clips the following day on news shows or read about it in papers and magazines.

“What happens on Leno has more impact than CNN, MSNBC or Fox,” says Chad Griffin, a Hollywood-based political consultant.

Candidate appearances on popular television shows are nothing new. Two months before the general election in 1968, Richard Nixon appeared on the premiere of “Laugh-In,” delivering the show’s signature line: “Sock it to me.” “It was considered a brilliant stroke,” says UC Irvine historian Jon Wiener, and it set the stage for candidate Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on “The Arsenio Hall Show” in 1992. Both Al Gore and George W. Bush followed suit with Leno in their presidential campaigns.

Democrat Howard Dean showed up on “The Tonight Show” a few weeks ago. He played a guitar on the street as Hollywood producer Rob Reiner dropped a dollar in his case. The clip appeared later on news segments about campaign fund-raising.

A product of Hollywood and a frequent guest on the show, Schwarzenegger was already savvy about the marketing opportunity for unfiltered air time Leno’s show provides celebrities and candidates. He announced his candidacy on “The Tonight Show,” and on election night, Leno introduced the victor as supporters cheered.

For those who have followed the steady overlapping of politics and entertainment, Leno’s short introductory speech represented a new descent on the “slippery slope” toward a democracy built on media fantasy and connections. Had Leno been a Schwarzenegger supporter all along? Is he a mouthpiece for certain politicians, Republicans particularly? Should the show be required to give equal time to all candidates?

At the least, Leno’s appearance at a partisan affair was unusual for a mainstream entertainer, says Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media & Public Affairs, a Washington, D.C.-based media think tank. Surveys indicate public hostility can arise when entertainers get involved in politics. Any entertainer who aligns himself with one side of an issue risks losing the part of his audience that holds the opposing viewpoint.

But Leno gains as well. As he joked at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s victory party, “Tonight is a testament of just how important one appearance on ‘The Tonight Show’ can be, ladies and gentlemen.” The next evening, Schwarzenegger appeared on the show to tease Leno about looking bored at the rally.

With the underdogs nipping at his heels in the ratings, Leno was interested in celebrity and politics, and in Schwarzenegger, he got them both, observers say.

“It may be [Leno’s] reference is so much show business, he didn’t really think through the political image that might be conveyed,” Lichter says.

According to a Leno publicist, Leno and Schwarzenegger are more professional associates than personal friends. “They have an affable and mutually beneficial personal relationship,” he says, noting that they’re more “Hollywood friends” who meet at events and parties, but that they’re not known to visit each other’s homes or share meals.

Although Leno has long targeted politicians and their foibles in his monologue -- former President Clinton has been a regular victim of the comedian’s jokes, even after leaving office -- his own political leanings remain shrouded. While his wife, Mavis, is a registered Democrat, his preference is “decline to state,” records show.

Until now, his private views have been openly visible only in support of his wife’s efforts to obtain equality for women and girls in Afghanistan. “There’s no question he is very supportive of women’s rights,” says Katherine Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation in Los Angeles, a research and education organization focused on women’s equality and health, with an emphasis on political action.

“The Tonight Show” hits an important audience, she says. “It’s different from people who watch CNN, or follow the ‘NBC Nightly News’ or ‘The Today Show.’ ”

To those outside Leno’s closest inner circle, he appears apolitical.

“I don’t think he’s a political guy at all,” says longtime friend Michael Lacey, owner of the Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. A driven performer, Leno hones his material before non-Hollywood audiences weekly at Lacey’s club and in about 100 performances yearly at corporate events and small clubs across the country. In a stand-up routine that lasts more than an hour and a half, only the last five minutes include political material, Lacey says. “I think he’s just telling jokes written for him by a staff.”

Leno is often quoted as a man who loves his job and the life it affords him. “He’s definitely not a Hollywood guy,” says a friend from Leno’s car and motorcycle circle. Leno neither drinks nor smokes (except for the occasional pipe), he says. “He likes to tell jokes and be happy and ride bikes and give his money away to charity.”

As a funny, bushy-haired teenager in Andover, Mass., his early stand-up jokes were about girls, cars and parents. But he was attracted, he told one journalist, to the subversive political humor of Mort Sahl who “would come on a middle-class show like Ed Sullivan

By the time he took over as host of “The Tonight Show,” he had built a loyal constituency in comedy clubs across the country, appealing to people who liked his regular-guy’s potshots at wacky elements of society.

Other late-night television comedians had dabbled in public affairs. Jack Paar interviewed Castro, Nixon and Robert Kennedy. Johnny Carson’s forays into politics caught the attention of Republican consultant Lee Atwater, who remarked in 1986 that he regularly watched Carson’s “The Tonight Show” to see how politicians played in Peoria.

“Jay Leno was the first late-night comedian to use politics as a major target,” says Lichter, whose center has counted political jokes on late-night TV ever since Atwater’s remark.

Most of the time, Leno is just as nasty, in his nice way, to Republicans as Democrats, Lichter says.

After the election, in which some of Schwarzenegger’s sexual exploits were revealed, Leno called Schwarzenegger “the governor-erect.” He has since ridiculed Schwarzenegger for asking budget advice from Bush.

The Center’s research shows that during the campaign, from Aug. 6 to Oct. 8, Leno made 24 jokes about Schwarzenegger and 25 jokes about Gov. Gray Davis. In contrast, Letterman made 49 jokes about Schwarzenegger and three jokes about Davis. O’Brien and comedian Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” together made 38 jokes about Schwarzenegger and three about Davis.

For the moment, it’s “win-win for Leno,” Lichter says. “He gets the contact with Schwarzenegger, who people want to see, and he gets to tell the jokes about him.”

Eventually, however, Schwarzenegger will begin to make decisions that are unpopular. And then, Lichter says, the nice man will have to make a tough political choice. “Leno will have to choose whether he comes to praise Arnold or to bury him.”