Bill Moyers Journal; 504; A Reporter's Notebook

Bill Moyers Journal

"A Reporter's Notebook"

February 21, 1980

BILL MOYERS: In racing, a dark horse is a relatively unknown contender, a long shot. So too in politics. John Anderson is a dark horse. Although he has served in the House of Representatives since 1960, not too many people outside his own district have ever heard of him. That's not stopping him from running for the Republican nomination for President. After all, the man he hopes to run against in November was once a dark horse from Georgia- and he made it. 'Diary of a Dark Horse' is one of the stories in tonight's Journal. I'll also take a look at the spots that appear before your eyes only in election years: we call them polispots, and there's usually more to them than meets the eye. Finally tonight, I'll be listening to America in Dayton, Ohio. I'm Bill Moyers.

MOYERS: Trying to cover politics in a presidential year is like looking at one of those old magic lantern shows of various optical illusions in which the objects rapidly change size. They blend into one another; then they emerge again with a different shape and hue. You can never really be certain exactly what you're looking at or what it means. Sometimes, though, you see three or four things at once that attract your attention, possibly an event of importance, though you may not realize it at the time, possibly a matter or two of little or no earnest, though at the moment of occurrence you think them promising indeed. Everything in politics is tentative, although the accumulated effect shapes all of us profoundly. For that reason, and for others, no single television format works best throughout the course of a campaign. So starting this week, my associates and I will, from time to time, look at several stories within a single hour. This isn't a 'magazine', as the trade calls it, it certainly isn't a documentary, an interview program, or a talk show. It's a little of all of them, like a letter home during a long trip perhaps, or a notebook, if you will, of such considerable things as come to a reporter's attention — beginning with 'Diary of a Dark Horse.'

JOHN ANDERSON: Okay, this is the Blue Cross to Goldsbury Street, right? Blue Cross, Blue Shield, all right.

ANDERSON: Doesn't look like too large a welcoming committee here.

Good morning. John Anderson, candidate for President, how are you? Very, very nice to see you. How are you? I'm John Anderson, candidate for President. John Anderson, how are you? Hi, I'm John Anderson. John Anderson, candidate for President, how are you? Hi, I'm John Anderson. Hi, how are you? I'm John Anderson, candidate for President. Hi, John Anderson, how are you?

MOYERS: John Anderson of Illinois is 58 years old. After 20 years in Congress, he is the Republican's third ranking leader in the House, but he has grown more liberal as the Party has become more conservative. So John Anderson is running for President as a dark horse. He got only 4% of the votes in Iowa and his strategy now is to increase his recognition quickly and get enough votes in the early primaries to become credible. With his wife Keke, he is heading for a swing through New Hampshire, but there is first the traditional campaign ritual, a Washington press conference. Anderson will announce a controversial proposal a new tax on gasoline plus a cut in Social Security taxes. It will bring recognition and it will bring risk.

ANDERSON: Today I am introducing as legislation a tax of 50¢ a gallon on all motor fuels, including gasoline and diesel fuel, that would be coupled with the largest tax cut in the history of this country. The imposition of a higher gasoline tax combined with offsetting tax cuts and increased Social Security benefits for the retired and disabled is in the best interests of the country. A tax of 50¢ a gallon would reduce our consumption and thus reduce our imports by nearly 10%.

REPORTER: Is this an issue that will sweep you to the Presidency?

ANDERSON: Well, it might sweep me right out of contention. According to some people. But I think people are tired of the old politics and that a candidate who is willing to speak to the issues and to tell the American people what they individually can and should do to try to meet the energy crisis, I believe they'll respect that, ultimately. And I think it's going to be a very big plus in my campaign.

2ND REPORTER: Where is your campaign? Everybody else is guessing what Connally's going to do in the South and what Reagan's going to do in your state of Illinois. Where is your campaign right now?

ANDERSON: My campaign is going very well, and I will be leaving here within an hour to go to New Hampshire where I've been a great many times. There are no press buses at the present time accompanying my campaign, so it makes it very easy for me to slip in and out of New Hampshire, virtually unnoticed. (Laughter) But I have been there, I have been there often, I will be back repeatedly between now and the 26th. I happen to think that there is a basic moderate progressive vote in the state of New Hampshire that is ultimately going to realize that you can take the other nine Republican candidates and you literally cannot slide a piece of paper between them. They are bunched that tightly on the right end of the political spectrum. And there's only one Republican candidate who's come out for SALT II, there's only one Republican candidate who says instead of advocating $20 billion increases in defense spending, that we ought to get busy and solve our economic problems right here at home. This is the thrust of my campaign, it makes it totally distinctive from any of the other nine candidates, and I think if I keep hammering away with that message, that ultimately I'm going to convince the moderate voters of the state of New Hampshire to support me, that I can get a sufficiently significant fraction of the total vote, that I can come out of that primary a credible candidate.

―

(Exterior, Washington, D.C. - strolling with Mary McGrory

ANDERSON (to McGrory): I've had kids on college campuses break out in spontaneous applause. They think this is what...

MARY MCGRORY, columnist, Washington Star: At what particular, at what particular junctures?

ANDERSON: Well, when I tell them...

McGRORY: as long as we're philosophizing.

ANDERSON: . when I tell them that, sure, this is a 50¢ tax and it's going to reduce demand, but, you know, it's the kind of action that we have got to be prepared to take because we're living in a new and different era where resources are not going to be as abundant and energy is not going to be cheap.

McGRORY: Why is he a Republican?

MRS. ANDERSON: I guess you have to come back to the fiscal policies of the parties, I guess that's probably what attracted John, the different ways of spending, spending money.

McGRORY: Well, I still have to find out why he's a Republican... you know, if he was born or made or...

MRS. ANDERSON: His parents were Republicans.

ANDERSON: I really feel that it's a much bigger challenge, you know, to try to remake the Republican Party, which I very candidly say I would like to do. I would like to reshape it, remold it, restructure it, and I find that much more challenging than to simply join the majority.

McGRORY: It's challenging, but do you ever get the impression it's hopeless? I mean, look what they did...

ANDERSON: There are days when it seems very bleak. (bidding farewell) Mary, this has all been very disjointed and very disconnected but that's the way most days are.

McGRORY: I mean, you have a much larger mission that the other candidates. They're just trying to be President. You are trying to convert a ...

ANDERSON: a Party, a whole Party. Yes, I mean, that is really, I mean, no candidate has ever had a more monumental task in the history of the GOP.

McGRORY: Usually, it's a little simpler for people.

ANDERSON AIDE: Our theory is that anybody that can convert the Republican Party can easily govern this nation.

ANDERSON: Right!

ANDERSON (about the newspaper he's reading): George Bush, Connally stumping New Hampshire. Why don't they have us stumping here? Huh?

ANDERSON: Morning, how are you? John Anderson, how are you? Nice to see you. (to the camera; about a brusque response) Whoops... well... morning. I'ni John Anderson, candidate for President, how are you? Nice to see you, nice to see you. (aside) Real sourpuss. (to a worker) Hi, John Anderson, how are you? Candidate for President, nice to meet you...

WORKER: Good morning, Mr. Anderson...

ANDERSON: Hi, how are you, sir? Nice to meet you...

2ND WORKER: I saw you on TV last night, they gave the wrong impression on this 50¢ for gas.

ANDERSON: They did? This is a local station...

2ND WORKER: No, no, but it has to do with, you said something about reducing Social Security taxes, right?

ANDERSON: Right, right.

2ND WORKER: Okay.

ANDERSON: You didn't get that message?

2ND WORKER: What I'm saying is, you don't get the whole message sometimes...

ANDERSON: Oh, that's too bad. Well, I'm glad you and I understand.

2ND WORKER: Might have been this particular station . . .

ANDERSON: You spread the word... you spread the word.

Well... appearances of this kind are designed to have the ripple effect.

STUDENT VOLUNTEER (nodding agreement): That's right.

ANDERSON: All day long, that's all they talk about.

ANDERSON: There weren't many people going in and out of that door.

ELIZABETH HAGER, New Hampshire Co-ordinator: Really?

ANDERSON: No...

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: I made about 50 ... 50, 60.

ANDERSON AIDE: About 50.

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: Where did, how did they get in?

ANDERSON AIDE: The fellow told me 1200.

ANDERSON: Well, maybe we left too early.

HAGER: The newspaper, local newspaper called this morning to ask how soon you expected Congress to pass your gas tax.

ANDERSON: Oh. Well, O'Neill says we haven't got a chance.

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: That was this morning on CBS.

ANDERSON: Boy, we had a beautiful piece by Wicker today.

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: Oh, I didn't see it.

ANDERSON: Idea man from Illinois ...

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: Great, great . .

.

HAGER (about article): Oh, look, idea man, good, great...

ANDERSON: Gee, this is great. Want to read that?

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: Sure.

ANDERSON: Read that, you'll be glad you're working for me, see? Even if you did get a ticket.

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: Says, ‘Meanwhile, win, lose, or draw, at 57 and looking younger, John Anderson is serving...

ANDERSON: How 'bout that?

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: a useful purpose of so many supposedly “can't win" candidates before him.'

ANDERSON: How about that 'looking younger' part?

(Laughter)

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: 'As an honest loser,' that's not a very good quote.

VOICE, off-camera: John, you're getting stories in the paper about your gas tax.

ANDERSON: That right?

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: ‘He is saying sensible things, putting forward innovative ideas, letting the chips fall where they may.

ANDERSON: Can't complain about that.

(Interior, Ramada Inn — Fundraising event)

WOMAN: How do you do?

ANDERSON: Hi, how are you? John Anderson...

MAN: Fine, thank you, and how are you?

ANDERSON: . . . nice of you to come, nice to see you.

MAN: Nice to see you. You're a good-looking man.

ANDERSON: How are you? Well, thank you, my golly .

2ND MAN: Right now, I'm a registered Democrat. Planning on changing tomorrow night, so ...

ANDERSON: Oh, man, thank you...

2ND MAN: ... I can vote for you in the primary.

3RD MAN: I changed, too, because I think it's terribly important to have an alternative and . . .

2ND MAN: We feel Republicans are the only alternative.

ANDERSON: I hope there are enough of you.

3RD MAN: Your candidacy could revive the Republican Party, though, because there's a whole host of independents... that . . .

ANDERSON: Well... that's the argument, you know.

4TH MAN: Looks like we got three Democrats here. I am one too. I like what you're saying and I want to hear more. ANDERSON: Well, I appreciate your coming. I really do.

ELIZABETH HAGER (addressing the audience): We're glad you all got to come tonight to meet Congressman Anderson. I'm Elizabeth Hager, his New Hampshire co-ordinator, and if any of you are interested in volunteering for the campaign, I would love to talk to you afterwards. But right now, I won't take any more of your time, and I will introduce to you the best Republican candidate in the field and the man who is going to win the New Hampshire primary next February 26, John B. Anderson.

YOUNG WOMAN (from the audience): From the onset of your candidacy for President, and throughout your time in Congress, you have been extremely up front about your position on abortion rights. And, at this point, I would like to get some insight as to why the other Presidential candidates have been extremely squeamish in dealing with the the nationwide polls that the majority of Americans do abortion issue, when they know, through the polls support legal abortion in this country.

ANDERSON: This is a very emotional issue, and it's one of those so-called 'hot button' social issues that can be energized by the anti-choice groups to organize against you. I'm afraid that there are some candidates today who think that by being quiet on this issue, who are saying, ‘yes, on the one hand, we are against the Constitutional amendment but on the other hand we don't feel deeply enough about this issue that we are opposed to the mean-spirited efforts that have been made recently, and unfortunately all too successfully in the Congress, to limit those rights, we don't think that they're important enough that the federal government should make those rights available to the poor, as well as to the rich or the affluent in our society.' I happen to think that's wrong. I happen to think that freedom of conscience is something that belongs to everybody, regardless of their socio-economic status in our society. And I intend to go on speaking on that issue and in favor of the position of freedom of choice as long as I'm a candidate.

MRS. ANDERSON: He has the ability to look down the line, 4, 5, 6, probably even as much as five years ahead of time, and have a good sense of what is going to be happening then. And sometimes that can be…

ANDERSON: I wish I'd had it in 1965.

MOYERS: About the war?

ANDERSON: Yeah, I would have, I would have, you know, been one of those who would have voted differently on the, on the Tonkin Resolution. So let's be honest: I haven't always been as prescient on issues ...

MRS. ANDERSON: But you have been more right than wrong.

MOYERS: What do you think it was about that period? Was it just an unquestioning faith in the Chief Executive?

ANDERSON: Sure. There was more, I remember going to those briefings, you know, McNamara was very convincing about what we were doing. We had this CORDS program, and, you know, we were saving the soul of a nation, but turned out to be the wrong way, didn't it?

ANDERSON: Come on, give me a quick briefing. What are we doing here . .

.

AIDE: Steve can give you a quick briefing.

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: This is a restaurant in Hanover, you have about 20 people.

ANDERSON: We're going to eat, huh?

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: What it is, it's a combination of Dartmouth professors and just townspeople, that insurance guy that invited his friend from Lebanon. Someone who's going to be there that you must meet is Jeffrey Hart. He's a columnist, syndicated, he's in the Manchester Union-Leader, very right-wing conservative.

ANDERSON: Hart is not at Dartmouth.

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: Yeah, he's an English professor. He's been there for many years.

ANDERSON: I didn't realize that.

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: He said he'll write about you in his next column if he can have an interview. And he's in favor of the gas tax. The other issues like women's rights you may have to look out for as far as he's concerned, because he's not in favor. But on gasoline, he likes that. We've got to get going.

MOYERS: That's a good briefing. Are you a student at Dartmouth?

STUDENT VOLUNTEER: Yes, I'm a volunteer working on the campaign…

ANDERSON: After 19 and after the next 20 years, or ten terms, in the House, I came to the conclusion that I could make a contribution to my country in running for the Presidency.

JEFFREY HART: Congressman, I wonder if you would address yourself to the issue of racial quotas, and the issue of busing to achieve school integration.

ANDERSON: Well, Professor Hart, I happen to believe very strongly that we did have deep, pervasive discrimination solely on the basis of the color of a man's skin for 300 years in this country, and that it left a very indelible mark and stamp on patterns of education, patterns of employment, and I think, I think that as a society we have some obligation to make up for that period of sustained and prolonged discrimination. And that, therefore, you know, race should be taken into account, that we should have affirmative action, and I don't want to see it done in such a doctrinaire way that we say, you know, automatically 16 out of 100 places must be assigned. There has to be some greater flexibility than that. But, that does not mean that we should just be entirely neutral, in my opinion, on the busing thing. I did, of course, speak and vote against the Constitutional amendment that was proposed earlier this year. I do not believe that we should announce that as Constitutional doctrine, that we put such a high priority on stopping busing that that's more important than trying to secure equal protection of the laws. I think we're standing, we're standing things on their head when we come to that conclusion.

HART: Well, Congressman Anderson, we certainly appreciate the opportunity…

ANDERSON: Well, my, my pleasure...

MOYERS: What did you think about Congressman Anderson? This was your first meeting with him, wasn't it?

PROF. JEFFREY HART: That's right. In the paper this morning I read, I think in Mary McGrory's column, that Bob Dole said he was the most intelligent of the candidates running for President. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but he certainly is intelligent. And I think he belongs in the Republican Party. When he speaks on economics, he's very persuasive to me. On things where I might disagree with him, some issues of social policy, I nevertheless think he's a man of reason and would respond to the evidence.

MOYERS: What I hear in following Anderson around is that if he were to be nominated, he more than any other Republican, could attract Democrats and independents in a general election. What do you think about that?

HART: When you talk about Democrats and independents, it seems to me that the swing vote in 1972 and again in '76 was what might be called the 'Wallace constituency.' In '72, it went with Nixon against McGovern; in '76 it went with Carter against Ford. So there's one slice of the Democratic constituency. Who might appeal to that volatile part of that constituency is a serious political question, I think. I'm just not sure that Congressman Anderson could appeal I'm waiting to see how the different candidates run. I to that swing vote. I think, I, like most other people this year- mean, they each have to make their case, in a way. In 1968, Nixon had to prove that he was not a loser, as the problem was then put. Then he came to New Hampshire and proved that, and in subsequent primaries. Connally has to prove that, to put it crudely, he's not a crook. Reagan has to prove that the age and the other things are not disqualifying. We just don't know. It's a pragmatic test. If the voters say it's not a problem, then it's not a problem. MOYERS: What does Anderson have to prove?

HART: He has to prove that he's a heavyweight, and he has to prove that he can muster the financial support to mount a serious campaign.

ANDERSON: It is a dehumanizing, degrading, debilitating, and almost sometimes a disgraceful way of picking the chief magistrate of this country, because it involves so many superficialities, doing so many things. All of this pressing the flesh, as if somehow that is going to communicate to people some message.

MOYERS: You're 58 in February of 1980.

ANDERSON: Yes.

MOYERS: Is there any one image at the age of 58 that best sums up your idea of yourself?

ANDERSON: As I have gotten older, people have said I've changed, that I've become more liberal, that I'm not the same staunch conservative young man that I was when I was first elected to office almost 20 years ago. MOYERS: That is certainly true. I was in Washington when you first came to Washington, and you were the, you were the epitome of the orthodox Republican— the Goldwater Truth Squad, voting against housing, voting against civil rights...

ANDERSON: Ah, well, if I have an image of myself, it is that increasingly in my life I have realized how difficult and complex most issues are, that there aren't just a few simple truths that are going to solve all of our problems, and that only as you are willing to accept, in a fairly eclectic manner, advice from this quarter and advice from that quarter, and mold all of this into your own ideas about what is best for yourself and for your country, do you ever make progress. It's a more judicious, I think, approach to life and to its problems.

MOYERS: I stood in the back of the auditorium in Indianapolis in 1979 when the Republican women hosted all the Republican candidates.

ANDERSON: Yes.

MOYERS: John Connally came and promised a tax cut and they cheered lustily. Another candidate stood and talked about big business, praising big business, and they cheered lustily. John Anderson stood up and talked about more aid for the Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees and they sat on their hands. Now, what does that say to you?

ANDERSON: Well, that's one of the things that disturbs me about the Republican Party, and I've been very frankly critical of my fellow Republicans that not just totally from the standpoint of image, because substantively sometimes we simply have not demonstrated the kind of concern and compassion about human needs that we should.

MOYERS: Why is that?

ANDERSON: We have let dollar signs, I think, obliterate our vision and we have worn kind of the green eyeshade, the green eyeshade of the bookkeeper, and we have been so concerned about balancing the books that we haven't really understood that there are moments in human history where human needs are so desperate, and have to be so overriding, that we have to be concerned with that rather than some neat, tidy ordering of our financial picture. MOYERS: You've been very specific this week on the issues and as I've heard you talk about ERA, abortion, nationalism, defense... I was thinking, I'm not sure people want, in a Presidential campaign, that kind of detailed discussion. People's eyes begin to go... glassy. And I kept thinking of what Nelson Rockefeller had said, that if you want to run for President, you should stress 'BOMFOG,' brotherhood of man, fatherhood of God, and not, not discuss the issues. And no, nobody who has discussed the issues that explicitly has ever made it to the White House in my memory.

ANDERSON: Well, Bill, I think that's part of our problem... I really think that's part of our problem, that we have settled for less than a very explicit blueprint of what we should have and what we ought to expect of an administration.

MOYERS: Do you sometimes feel that even with your steepage in the issues, you are in the course of a campaign compelled to be clever, superficial, cute?

ANDERSON: Oh, I'm afraid so, yes. To compete for attention, to view with all of the other candidates when, particularly when you have a field as broad as the field that we have on the Republican side this time. I think that you, at times, find yourself doing things that... if your sober judgment were really brought to bear, you would disdain to do, but they somehow seem to be necessary.

(Exterior, Boston The Quincy Market - campaigning)

WOMAN: I want to wish you loads of luck.

ANDERSON: Oh, thank you very much. How are you? Are you inside...

WOMAN: I work at the Quincy Market.

ANDERSON: Oh, very good, swell . . .

WOMAN: Good luck, now.

ANDERSON: Thank you, thanks very much... Hi, how are you? I'm John Anderson. Nice to meet you. Hi, how are you? How are you? I'm running for President. Nice to meet you.

MAN: Why do you want to be President?

ANDERSON: Why do I want to be President? I think after 19 years in the U.S. House, I've got something to offer the American people. I think I know what it's all about. Hi, John Anderson, how are you?

TEACHER: I'm a teacher...

ANDERSON: Hi, oh, you are? Great. John Anderson, candidate for President. (to a child) Hi, how are you, nice to see you.

MOYERS: You're the teacher?

TEACHER: Yes, right.

MOYERS: Scotty, had you ever heard of John Anderson before?

TEACHER: No, not really.

MOYERS: Have you heard of Connally?

TEACHER: Oh, sure.

MOYERS: Reagan?

TEACHER: Um-hmmm.

MOYERS: Crane?

TEACHER: Right.

MOYERS: Think it's silly for a man you don't know to be running for President?

TEACHER: No, not too long ago Jimmy Carter did the same thing.

ANDERSON (to a counter woman): Hi, John Anderson, candidate for President. Very nice . . . I thought I would bring my Greek wife along. That might do me some good.

COUNTER WOMAN: Oh, yeah?

ANDERSON: How are you?

MOYERS: What about his chances to be President?

MAN: None.

MOYERS: None?

MAN: None.

ANDERSON (to photographers, requesting pictures): There are not too many people, unfortunately. He wants us to pose with some people.

MOYERS: John, you know, walking through there with you, the question comes up: What is your strategy? I mean, that's such an infinitesimally small number of people . . .

ANDERSON: of people in, in the Quincy Market...

MOYERS: Yeah, and the number of small people last night in Woodstock. What is it you're trying to do?

ANDERSON: Well, I think, eventually you hope that events like that will create some visibility, you know, that your profile will, will become a little bit more visible as a result of events of that kind.

MOYERS: But practically, when does that have to happen? Before New Hampshire, before Illinois, when does it have to happen? When do you . . . Jeffrey Hart said to me yesterday, ‘his main problem is to become a heavyweight.' not intellectually, but politically. When does that have to happen?

ANDERSON: Oh, I don't know that it can really happen until after they count the votes probably in the first primary, which is New Hampshire on the 26th of February. A candidate like myself has to be just content, I think, to go along and hope that he gradually builds up some strength — enough to win an early primary.

MOYERS: So there's no grand strategy.

ANDERSON: Oh, I don't think so.

MOYERS: A little piece of the puzzle here, a little piece of the puzzle there, and hoping? For what?

ANDERSON: Well, hoping that you'll win. That's, that's, you know, that's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you can pull off a surprise win, then suddenly everybody says, ‘Aha, I knew all along that fellow had it. He was a president in the making,` see? And then you become credible.

ANDERSON: Five days. . . I don't even know what I'm doing tomorrow. You can't permit yourself, really, to .. kind of relax, or relapse or whatever the word is.

MRS. ANDERSON: Be reflective?

ANDERSON: No, I mean, you're always supposed to be go, go, go, charge up, energetic, vibrant, brimming with vitality, pleasant, charming. Well, I think I'm going to shut my eyes.

MRS. ANDERSON: Going to go to sleep? Want to put your head in my lap?

ANDERSON: Why not?

MRS. ANDERSON: Want to use me for a pillow?

ANDERSON: Why not?

MRS. ANDERSON: Okay, baby.

ANDERSON: Nothing like a little nap.

End of 'Diary of a Dark Horse

MOYERS: You will find in the dictionary a definition of `dark horse, but don't bother looking for the definition of 'polispots. It's not there. If it were, that definition might read: 'polispots · a rash of fleeting images emanating from a television set, only on election years, serving to amuse, confuse, seduce, and sometimes bore to death unsuspecting spectators on their way from "Archie Bunker's Place" to "The Little House on the Prairie.

I'm. talking about political spot announcements, those paid commercials for candidates that in the last 20 years have become a fixture on the political landscape... not without controversy. One of my friends argues that if politics is a con game, advertising goes right with it, arm-in-arm, hand-in-glove, tongue-in-cheek. Another claims the com- mercials demean the political process, distort the truth, and deceive the voters. Thomas Patterson and Robert McClure of Syracuse University wrote a book about television's coverage of the Nixon- McGovern campaign in 1972, and concluded that voters could get more information from the candidates' commercials than from the evening newscasts, which says as much about my business as it does about Madison Avenue. Edwin Diamond of MIT, on the other hand,\ in his book Good News, Bad News argues that the impact of television commercials is very much overrated, that what ultimately counts in a campaign is money, organization, and tradition how your parents voted, for example. Whatever their effect, for good or ill, polispots are upon us again, and New Hampshire, with its primary only a few days away, is receiving the first major blitz.

JIMMY CARTER: My own inclination is to, is to get the nose of the federal government out of local affairs and out of state affairs whenever they can be handled in a state or in a community.

NARRATOR: He used to be a full-time farmer. He does a different kind of work today, but it's still work - long hours of hard work.

CARTER: I'll... make a decision on it today.

NARRATOR: His decisions reach out to touch the lives of millions. In the course of any day, he focuses on every vital issue facing the nation.

CARTER:our comprehensive nationwide health program that's been presented to the Congress... For us to depart from those two basic documents is a serious mistake... My number one responsibility is to defend this country, to maintain its security.

NARRATOR: It's nothing at all like being alone in a Georgia field, driving a tractor for 10 hours in the hot sun. Yet no other candidate can match his work experience... or his life experience. President Carter, a solid man in a sensitive job.

MOYERS: With me to look at some of the commercials being shown this week in New Hampshire is Ron Powers, author, novelist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning media critic, formerly with the Chicago Sun-Times. Ron, that commercial we saw is quite a contrast to the one that Jimmy Carter, running for President, used in 1976, although it was made by the same media consultant, Gerry Rafshoon. What do you think Gerry Rafshoon's trying to tell us in that one?

RON POWERS: Well. Bill, we are left with no doubt as to exactly what it is that Jimmy Carter is doing for a living these days when we look at those spots. We see all of the symbols of the Presidency. We, in some of them, there's a White House establishing shot, there's a a Presidential Seal, there's the flag, there's the drumroll, and we see President Carter behind the podium looking very decisive and executive-like. This is a very dramatic contrast to the series four years ago, as the narrator pointed out, showing Mr. Carter in work clothes, walking through the peanut patches and looking thoughtful and outsiderish, but the product has been retooled for this campaign, much as many successful commercial products are retooled.

MOYERS: And much as many Presidents retooled their image when they were in the White House.

POWERS: That's true.

MOYERS: Does this one cause you to think of him merely as President, or as the kind of President he's been, kind of President he's been, either good or bad, in your own judgment?

POWERS: I think what what we're supposed to absorb are the non-verbal cues as to the Presidency itself, which the American people. I think, respond to. In that sense. I think it's a pretty effective campaign.

MOYERS: He's playing the statesman, not the politician, and it's instructive, I think, to look at the commercials being shown, or some of the commercials being shown in New Hampshire by his challenger. Edward Kennedy. Kennedy is not the front-runner, he's not the incumbent, so he's making full use, he can't make full use of his situation and has to become the challenger, to go on the attack, as in this spot now running in New Hampshire.

EDWARD KENNEDY: Everybody remembers the candidate who said in 1976, `I`ll never mislead you, and you can depend on it.' But do you remember what else he said? He said he would reduce inflation and unemployment to 4% by the end of his first term, that he would never use high interest rates to fight inflation, that he would never decontrol the price of oil and natural gas, that nuclear power is the resource of last resort, that he would get the equal rights amendment passed during his first year in office, that he would balance the budget and reduce the size of government. But now he's secluded in the White House, telling us to rally around his failure overseas. he refuses to discuss the issues, but Americans cannot afford to forget the problems President Carter has left behind. New Hampshire can change that. New Hampshire can make the difference in 1980.

MOYERS: Pretty tough.

POWERS: Yes. Tough, and it's an exception to many of the spots that we're going to be looking at that involve challengers to the Presidency because the general rule in these kind of commercials is what I call the 'Goodrich- Goodyear Syndrome. You want to get the candidate's name established and you want to project some kind of feeling about his personal qualities. The issues will come later...

MOYERS: He's a good man, a nice guy . .

POWERS: he's a good man, he's a warm guy, he's had a good education...

MOYERS: But this one?

POWERS: Kennedy: (a) he doesn't need that kind of name recognition, especially in the East where these are being shown, and (b) because of the peculiarities of his campaign and the controversies that have surrounded Edward Kennedy, the last thing he wants to do is remind people of the personal quality issue. So in a sense, he is reduced to something that's very unusual at this stage, and that is campaigning on the issues.

MOYERS: Do you think that's an effective attack on the President?

POWERS: I think it's effective partly because it looks effective. As we watched this we saw again a man who looked as though he might be sitting in the Oval Office. You saw that little vestige of an American flag, the blue-suited executive looking straight into the camera. So, that is part of the non-verbal expertise of these commercials that register, I think, almost in the viewer's subconscious.

MOYERS: What intrigues me about both Kennedy and Carter in New Hampshire is that they discovered. as Richard Nixon himself discovered, the use of radio...

POWERS: Yes.

MOYERS: as an alternative to television, and both of them in their radio commercials are much tougher on each other than they are in television. Jerry Brown has an interesting commercial which we're not going to show, but he has himself a Californian in front of a wood-burning fire in New Hampshire, showing the transition from Sacramento to the Northeast. And on the Republican side. Howard Baker's spots are also interesting, in that they are specifically geared to make you think that this drawling Tennessean fits also among a New England voter. Here's one running now in New Hampshire.

NARRATOR: A lot of people run for President. Very few tell you what they'll do as President.

HOWARD BAKER: We would obliterate the energy deficit in this nation if we had an automobile that didn't burn gasoline. And what it needs is a clarion call from a new President who says. "We've got to do this.`I want a program that says in ten years time this nation will develop an automobile that does not burn gasoline.

NARRATOR: Baker.... ready for the 80s... ready for the job.

MOYERS: What do you think about that?

POWERS: Packed with clues about where we are, what the setting is, we saw the big fireplace, there was actually a long rifle tacked up on the fireplace..

MOYERS: I missed that.

POWERS: ... pointing away from Baker, as a matter of fact. A hook rug, the coffee mug, I thought for a minute it might be a Pepperidge Farm commercial. But it's certainly very New England.

MOYERS: All suggesting?

POWERS: All suggesting a certain locale, an empathy with the constituency, a particular bunch of people. It's interesting to me, by the way, that this commercial represents a great change of tactics for Howard Baker. As you'll recall a few weeks ago coming out of the lowa caucus, he had a commercial on the air that showed him shouting down an Iranian student who arose to protest what he was saying in a speech, and being applauded by the audience. CBS. I think, raised the question of whether an applause track had been laid into the spot that we saw

MOYERS: ... and they said that the answer was "yes," that the applause, which appeared to happen on the, in the commercial at the same time he challenged the Iranian student had actually come about nine minutes later and had been laid in to the commercial.

POWERS: Exactly. All of which tells me, Bill, that we are more aware as consumers of the danger of subliminal cues and the unfairness that can be built into some of these commercials. And I think perhaps the sophistication on the part of the audience is growing, and I think that`s a very healthy sign.

MOYERS: There's a contrast to the well-done Baker commercial in some of the spots that Ronald Reagan is using on television. I did an hour interview with Governor Reagan last year. he was very smooth as he almost always is. very fluent. But in these commercials in New Hampshire, I was surprised in looking at them. at some of them. that he seemed uncertain and uncomfortable. In fact, if you'll watch his eyes on the one we're about to see, which we've shortened just to see that verbal part of it, you'll see what I mean.

RONALD REAGAN: If there's one thing we've seen enough of, it`s this idea that for one American to gain, another American has to suffer. When the economy is weak, as it has been in recent years. everybody suffers, especially those who have the least. If we reduced paperwork and unnecessary regulations, if we cut tax rates deeply and permanently, we'll be removing many of the barriers that hold everyone back. Those who have the least will gain the most. If we put incentives back into society, everyone will gain. We have to move ahead, but we can't leave anyone behind.

MOYERS: He's obviously using cue cards or teleprompter and there's nothing wrong with that. I use a tele-prompter, I use cue cards, but what is surprising is, he's supposed to be better at it. . .

POWERS: His eyes are dropping down to the, to the cue cards and it's ...

MOYERS: How do you explain that?

POWERS: I don't explain it, it's astonishing. It's almost as though Carter's man, Gerry Rafshoon, has infiltrated Governor Reagan`s media team. But it's an astonishing lapse, because . . .

MOYERS: Does it hurt him or help him?

POWERS: I think it probably hurts him because we all remember and associate the classic shifty-eyed problems of Richard Nixon when he was under duress on television. That's an unfortunate symbol to be left, to be allowed to remain in a spot like this.

MOYERS: Particularly with a front-runner. And it could well suggest what everybody has been say . what a lot of pundits have been saying, that there is trouble within the Reagan organization. If those were done in a hurry, if they were done with poor production. if they were done thoughtlessly, it could suggest a deeper disorder within the Reagan campaign, particularly in contrast to his chief challenger right now. George Bush, whose commercials. I think, are probably the most effective being run in New Hampshire. They appeal much more to the heart than to the mind, as we'll see in this one.

GEORGE BUSH: I've seen this country up close. I hear what Americans are saying. Yes, they want change. Yes, they want solutions. But they don't want yesterday's ideas, promising everything to everybody. Americans today are ready to roll up their sleeves and rededicate this country to excellence in principle and to leadership from strength. And that's why I'm optimistic about our future. ‘

NARRATOR: George Bush, a President we won't have to train.

MOYERS: Message?

POWERS: This is the classic... technique for a very effective commercial. It's fast, it moves, it has interesting lighting, it shows the man in motion surrounded by people. There's a sense of energy coming out of these spots. In other Bush commercials you hear about his war record, you learn about his exceptional Yale education. It's really in the mainstream of the good American citizen, the effective leader, the nice guy. I think that, certainly compared to the rest of what we've seen, this is state of the art.

MOYERS: Do these scare you, these commercials?

POWERS: Yes. They scare me partly because of what they don't do. I'm concerned that these commercials ignore one very important responsibility and that is to remind us that in voting, in participating in the democratic process, we're not just choosing among products. I think the dangerous secondary message of all of these spots is that we are rather passive as voters. It's up to us to sort of stroke our chins thoughtfully, listen and then choose either Product A or Product B. It's ironic that as these commercials are getting off the ground, Pepsi-Cola has inaugurated an $80 million campaign for really a soft drink, but it shows Americans out there, involved, doing things in their community, being full of life and vitality. I would sort of like to see some of this transferred to the political spots to remind us that our responsibilities as citizens don't stop at pressing the voting lever.

MOYERS: Or simply watching commercials.

POWERS: That's right.

MOYERS: Ron, I hope you'll come back in the course of this campaign and talk about some commercials of the other candidates and about the media as well, not just the commercials.

POWERS: Be delighted to.

MOYERS: Thank you. Ron Powers.

MOYERS: As candidates roam the country and commercials fill the airwaves, the most intriguing part of this election for me remains the most inscrutable — how each of us will make up our minds as to the man we`ll support when finally we vote. It's fascinating to remember that elections are ultimately decided by tens of millions of individual decisions, filtered through a myriad of personal intuition, expectations, judgment, and prejudice. logic, and well, even folly. That's why, for some of us, the thrill of politics is not just in watching the candidates, but in listening to the voters.

MOYERS: In Dayton, Ohio, the Dayton Daily News has put together a group of people who meet once a month to talk about the candidates and the issues.

It's a cross-section that includes two teachers, an electrical engineer, a secretary, two factory workers, a housewife, a junior executive, and a recently laid-off manufacturing employee, who is now farming. Two black members of the group did not show up at this session I attended shortly after the Iowa debate to talk about the candidates. I began by asking them how they regard Jimmy Carter's performance as President.

CLARENCE RANDALL): I didn't vote on him in 1976, and... but I guess as. as he went on for, say, the first three years, I lost respect for him. I think I've gained a little back... a little back there for a while during the Iran crisis, but I think I lost, you know, I really didn't think he was the right man for the President.

MOYERS: Why? Was there anything in particular?

RANDALL: He just really didn't seem to have any. to assert himself as President. He seemed just kind of like he was weak. He just, well, he didn't seem to be doing anything. His programs weren't going through. I mean, like the energy and so forth that really needed to go. He didn't seem to have much influence in Congress as far as getting things done.

MOYERS: He just sort of got swallowed up by the office.

RANDALL: Yeah, yes, yes.

MOYERS: What does that say about what you look for in a leader, in a President?

RANDALL: Somebody who does have a... somebody who can get things done in office but somebody who`s, you know, who does things that, that you think is for the benefit of the country, not just doing things.

BILL LINESCH (sales executive): I find myself still making excuses for Jimmy, because there was a time when I really put a lot of stock in him. I thought he was the one. He was an outsider. I still to this day think he's very, very honest. I believe him when he says something. I just... it seems like he hasn't been able to overcome the pitfalls of Washington. I almost . . .

MOYERS: What do you mean, pitfalls?

LINESCH: He's not an insider, and I don't know that he learned how to play 'Let's Make a Deal' early enough. I think, I somehow, I sometimes still think he could be a hell of a President, if he'd just pull his act together a little bit and really take stock of what he's learned.

MOYERS: You really think a President has to bargain, compromise, make deals, wheel and deal and get things done in Washington.

LINESCH: I wish it wasn't that way, but I think it's that way. I really do.

MOYERS: Let me just throw out some names and without my calling on you, you just tell me what your impressions are of these candidates. I'm going to call out the names of all the candidates and I'd like to get some assessment of you of these candidates. We'll start with the Republicans Ronald Reagan.

KATHY HAWVERMALE (secretary): Old.

ANOTHER: Old.

A THIRD: Yeah.

MOLLY CAMPBELL (teacher): Well, not very old, but just . . . old.

MOYERS: Bush.

RANDALL: I like him so far. I've got kind of. I kinda have a lot of good feelings about him, and not very many bad at this point.

LINESCH: Good background.

RON BURKHARD (dispatch clerk, parking attendant): I don't think he's afraid to make a decision and the way that he'll stand behind it, I mean, I ... I still lack that knowledge of whether he'll stand behind what he says, you know.

CAMPBELL: I think he certainly lacks charisma. He's very, seemed to be in the debates, somewhat self-pitying, and I just don't think he's got the personality and unfortunate, that's unfortunate because he certainly is well- qualified, but I just don't think he has the charisma to pull him through, you know.

MOYERS: What is charisma?

CAMPBELL: It's Crane. It's someone like Jimmy Carter . . .

MOYERS: Phil Crane?

CAMPBELL: yeah, someone like Jimmy Carter was when he was elected. It's a Kennedy, it's, it's media, it's looks, it's glibness, it's enthusiasm... and I just don't think Bush has that. He's not exciting.

RANDALL: Well, but Carter was exciting, but it sure didn't do much good.

CAMPBELL: No, I'm not saying that's a, but I'm saying . . .

RANDALL: I don't think a person has . . .

CAMPBELL: and I think that's what gets somebody elected.

RANDALL: I don't think a guy has to be an actor or something, or a, necessarily, you know, sometimes you don't get yourself, in other words, just getting your point across to somebody doesn't necessarily mean, I don't think that's necessarily a, something you really have to be.

MOYERS: Connally?

JOHN LIKER (electrical engineer): Wheeler-dealer.

HAWVERMALE: Good old boy.

MOYERS: A what?

HAWVERMALE: Good old boy. I mean that's, because that's, I don't like that, but that's the impression he gives.

ART... I don't necessarily like that in a politician.

CAMPBELL: If you're going to get somebody that knows how to run the country, probably Connally's the one. I don't know that I trust him implicitly, but he's the antithesis of Carter, boy, he knows how to cope with those smoke-filled rooms, he knows how things work, he knows how the wheels turn, and I think he really could make some changes because he knows who, the right people to call and the right people to finger.

LINESCH: Well, I think that's what they said about Nixon, too, for the second term. Here's a guy who can really do it and we put our hopes in him. But we'd been told long ago that he had some problems with honesty. I mean, it wasn't the first thing that had come up and, you know, there are a lot of shady things that went on. Boy, I'll go for honesty, you know, it's... it's something that I'd hate to ever see happen again.

MOYERS: John Anderson.

LIKER: I thought John Anderson was especially refreshing, because he was the only one that wasn't 'me too, me too, me too. So it changed my vote, like in this group, you know. I'll be departing from Kennedy for the first time.

MOYERS: Is that right?

LIKER: Yeah. If we do have that straw vote.

MOYERS: If you were to compare tonight, if we were having that straw vote right now, you would probably change your vote from Kennedy ...

LIKE: I would change to John Anderson.

MOYERS: All right, let's go to the Democrats. Kennedy. Ruth, what do you think about Kennedy?

RUTH LAWRENCE (housewife): At first, I thought he would be a man for the job, but then, if he is elected, you can pretty well bet that he won't last out his term, because someone will cut it short.

MOYERS: What do you think happened since his campaign started? It started so high and fell so fast. What do you think happened to Kennedy?

LAWRENCE: I don't know. He seems to, he's not as glib as he was at first. And he's not, he's not as good a speechmaker as his brothers.

MOYERS: Does Chappaquiddick bother you about Kennedy?

HAWVERMALE: It makes me distrust him, and I don't know, he... he just doesn't, at first he really did, I felt like he was strong and he would be the leader we're all waiting for, and then he just fizzled out, just, there's no more, there's nothing there any more that attracts me to him.

LINESCH: I tried to listen to him when he first came on, you know, because he has some of that charisma, and he yells his speeches and he pounds his fist, and he says nothing, or he said nothing, in the very beginning, it seemed, and I just, like, what's there to hold on to besides charisma?

BURKHARD: I think the thing that set me against him is there... I seen in a television broadcast in the morning where he, you know, something like "Issues and Answers," where he said that he'd answer any questions, he wouldn't back down on any questions as far as, you know, that . . . deal up there...

MOYERS: Chappaquiddick.

BURKHARD: ... and yet, and yet that very evening he was asked on another program, and he backed down on the, he refused to answer a couple of questions on there.

MOYERS: As this primary season moves on, what are you going to be watching for? How are you going to be making up your mind?

CAMPBELL: Well, I think the most obvious thing that you look for is mistakes, faux pas. I think that`ll let, people attrition out by sticking their feet in their mouths, and that's bound to happen. There are so many people that are interested in being President, that's bound to happen, so that's the first thing, obviously the easiest thing to look for.

But then, I think, you know, the issues that personally affect us the most are the ones that we`re the most interested in. I don't know that . . . inflation hits me so I'll be interested in their stands on economics, but I think foreign policy`s very limportant to all of us, more so than anything else.

LINESCH: I'd really be looking for more substantive, what's my program going to be, this is what I do. Because when they get into this tearing down stuff, I just, I get really kind of angry, because they're not the ones that have to make the decisions and they're not the one, you know, that... have to live with it.

BURKHARD: I'll be looking for somebody who... I guess mainly leadership, you know, someone that can try to pull them together.

MOYERS: What do you mean 'leadership? That's an interesting term that everybody is talking about.

BURKHARD: Okay, I know everybody's talking about it, well, okay, well, like... when he makes a decision, I mean, he stands behind it and . . . and puts pressure on, I mean, he keeps the pressure on, I mean, he don't take it off and gives in to them even though he feels like he's wrong. This is one, this is another thing I think Carter lacks a little bit. He gave in to them a lot of times when he didn't want to... and . . . so . . . that, in that respect I don't think, I think he's lost leadership, you know. And I think this is why he can't get a lot of his other things through, because they figure if they stall long enough that he'll give in to them.

MOYERS: Let me make a few quick statements and see what you think about them what these collectively say to you. Kennedy was elected and assassinated, Johnson was elected and discredited, Nixon was elected and disgraced, Ford was appointed and defeated, Carter was elected and stymied. What do all those statements say to you?

LINESCH: We haven't had a good President since Eisenhower? (Laughs) No, it doesn't say that.

SOMEONE: Yes, it does, yes.

CAMPBELL: I think that what it means is that it's becoming more and more difficult to be an effective leader in our complex world and being President isn't easy, and we expect, I think, more from our Presidents than what is now physically possible.

MOYERS: Arnold Rosenfeld is editor of the Dayton Daily News. He and managing editor Joe Fenley put together this discussion group to keep closer tabs on the critical pulse of the community. It occurred to both of us that none of the people in the discussion talked about political parties or ideology.

ARNOLD ROSENFELD: I remember when I was, when I was a kid, my father told me what the Democratic Party stood for and what the Republican Party stood for, and what he stood for, and that's, you know, lived with me for a long time. I think that's all breaking down and I regret it, I really regret it because I think it would be helpful in all this fragmentation to have clear stains of philosophy. What... what a party represents, what it's responsible for, what its program is, and who it allies itself with, who it pities, who it hates. That's not clear.

MOYERS: We don't have it, so what we have is what these people were doing tonight searching. This ambivalence that was so apparent in this session and which has been consistent from your first session with these people makes for fickle politics, for volatile politics.

ROSENFELD: Yeah, and I think it's a reflection of the time. I think that, you know, and I suffer a bit of guilty conscience about it. I think people are very buffeted now by information, moved around by it in a way they don't know or understand. For those of us who put out the information don't know or understand, it's sort of as if they were... each person's trapped in a kind of mirror maze and he's looking for a way out. You walk against the wall, for sure this is the way out, that's not the way. And maybe there's a voice in back of that wall saying, 'no, it's not the way.' And they turn again, 'is this the way?' 'No, it's not the way.' And they're puzzled by this, bedazzled by the process. They cannot find a direct line toward wisdom, cannot believe anyone is wise. I think there was a time you could. When in your life you could say, 'I know someone who is very wise, who I can listen to.' They're trying to think hard to find something to hold on to and they think that will be a national leader and they're searching... they're really searching. They're looking at all these fellows and they know they're going to be disappointed. You can hear them say it. They know that... they're terribly afraid to give their hearts away once again and find out that it wasn't worth it.

MOYERS: That's "A Reporter's Notebook" for now.

I'll be back twice next week with two editions of the Journal, a special edition on “The Politics of Regulation" and the other on Barry Commoner and ``The Politics of Energy.” Check the listings for your local time.

I'm Bill Moyers.