TV CAMPAIGN SPOTS IMPORTANT PART    
OF PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS

Televised debates among the major candidates running for the presidency of the United States have been a key factor influencing public opinion in presidential races for decades. The air time for the debates is provided free of charge by the television networks as a public service.

But even more significant, say some analysts, are the paid political campaign spots that air during regular programming. The reason, they say, is that many more Americans see the 30- or 60-second campaign spots than either the debates or regular public affairs programming.

The first televised campaign spots in a presidential campaign were aired in 1952. In a series of commercials, Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican candidate for president, answered questions from average citizens. These spots were titled "Eisenhower Answers America" and featured dramatic footage of "the Man from Abilene" interacting with voters. (Eisenhower was from Abilene, Kansas.)

The Democratic candidate for president, Adlai Stevenson, also aired television spots but they were considered by the experts to be much more wooden, less well produced and less effective. Since many Americans did not own television sets in 1952, the cost of the campaign spots was relatively cheap since the audience was small at that time. Consequently, some of the spots were much longer than the 30- or 60-second political ads commonplace today. A few were 30 minutes long.

The most famous 30-minute political commercial during the 1952 campaign featured Senator Richard Nixon, the Republican vice presidential candidate. Nixon had been accused of corruption and took to the airwaves, courtesy of the Republican National Committee, to defend his record. This was the so-called "Checkers" speech, named after a dog Nixon had received as a gift. Nixon said he would not give up the dog and he hoped the American people would not give up on him. The broadcast was so successful that Eisenhower, who had considered dropping Nixon from the ticket, kept him on.

Eisenhower and Nixon handily won the general election and probably would have without the televised campaign commercials. But pollsters documented that the ads helped much more than any of Eisenhower's campaign managers believed at the time. From that point on, paid political television commercials became a vital component of presidential campaigning. The spots became increasingly sophisticated -- and expensive -- as the television audience grew throughout the 1950s.

By 1960 when John F. Kennedy faced Richard Nixon in the presidential election of that year, there was no doubt that television, and television ads in particular, were a vital part of campaigning for the presidency -- much more important than traditional door-to-door campaigning or newspaper or radio ads. Television was now in nine out of 10 homes. The late Theodore White, who chronicled the 1960 campaign, said "Television is the political process; it's the playing field of politics. Today, the action is in the studios, not in the backrooms."

Occasionally, the campaign spots became a controversial component of presidential campaigns. The most famous early example was in 1964 when the Democrats aired a commercial suggesting that the Republican nominee for president, Barry Goldwater, was not to be trusted with nuclear weapons -- the famous Daisy commercial featuring a little girl. "These are the stakes -- to make a world in which all of God's children can live," intoned the voice of Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic candidate for president.

Although the spot was withdrawn after one airing because of the furor that followed, analysts said it worked -- by hinting that Goldwater was too reckless for the nuclear age. "The ad was important also because it got so much free play," says analyst Kathleen Hall Jamieson. "It was a news ad. The intent was to get news play."

In the current campaign, Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate for president, offered to pull his political campaign spots if his likely Republican opponent, Texas Governor George W. Bush, would do the same. Gore challenged Bush to twice-weekly debates on the issues instead. But Bush declined the offer indicating that the television spots are a major means for him to get out his message.

The buying of airtime for political messages is forbidden in many countries but is commonplace in the United States. Defenders of the practice say it is one way an unpopular or little-known candidate who is drawing little media attention can attract the notice of voters. They also are informative, says Jamieson. "If I had a choice between watching what you typically see in news about campaigns and your typical ad, I would watch the typical ad." But critics complain that the system is now too costly and involves candidates and political parties in the raising of enormous sums of money to pay for the ads.

During the 1990s, candidates increasingly looked for other opportunities to get out their message that did not involve paying the broadcasters. In the 1992 presidential campaign, for example, then-Governor Bill Clinton started a new trend by appearing on "Donahue," a daytime talk show, and also on other entertainment shows, as well as on the cable network music program MTV. Third party candidate Ross Perot made repeated appearances on the "Larry King Show" on CNN.

Television historians point out that the appearances were not completely unprecedented. Both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, the major presidential candidates in the 1960 election, had appeared on the "Jack Paar Show," a highly rated entertainment talk show of the time. But until the 1992 campaign, such appearances were relatively rare. Diana Mutz, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin, points out that Perot campaigned "almost exclusively on television, and, if elected, promised to keep in touch with voters through electronic town meetings."

With the increasing proliferation of cable and satellite channels, the number of outlets for candidates to air their political ads is growing exponentially, but so are the costs -- one reason they make more appearances as guests on regularly scheduled programs. The effects of a 500-channel television universe on the political system have scarcely been examined since it is so recent.

Some candidates and pundits welcome new vehicles for expressing political messages. Others feel overwhelmed by what Michael O'Neill, author of the book Roar of the Crowd, has warned is a broadcasting maze too difficult for any campaign to effectively navigate. O'Neill warns of a 'Tower of Babel' emerging in which it will be increasingly difficult for a politician to reach his targeted audience.

It's all a far cry from 1952, when the "Man from Abilene" commercials helped Dwight Eisenhower win the presidency. Back then, most American cities had two or three television stations, national TV networks were only a few years old, and the promise of global television via satellite and cable a science fiction dream.