Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Political campaigns go on and on

By Bob Aldrich

Americans seem to tolerate public spectacles when they are stretched out to the longest possible duration. We watched the O.J. Simpson trial for months; by the time it staggered toward its questionable end, many of us had given up. One hopes that the coming trial of the accused killer of Polly Klaas will not be prolonged. As for the alleged destroyers of the Oklahoma City federal building, who knows but that lawyers will be still be arguing over the two defendants a year from now?

Our political campaigns seem to on forever and ever, too. I am already weary of hearing about the positioning of Dole-Gramm-Buchanan-Forbes-Alexander-et al. and whether President Clinton is up or down a notch in the latest poll is irrelevant to me. How will we get along until the March primaries, let alone next November's election, without throwing some damaging object at the TV screen?

Couldn't we have a campaign that starts six months before the election? Maybe it could be divided into quarters, so we'd know when we're at halftime, when the Republican Rockettes and Democratic Dolls would entertain until play resumed.

I am tired of pundits who seem to be interested in nothing except who's ahead in the polls and what the chances are of Mr. Frontrunner falling behind, or Mr. Lagging in Texas and New Jersey catching up. Isn't there anything else to talk about--some of the issues, for instance?

Voters may click their remotes in vain trying to come up with a reasonable discussion of the real problems confronting the republic. Out of control spending, sharply rising unemployment, schools in chaos, violent crime; these things are mentioned, yes, over and over, but how often do we hear a quietly reasoned discussion of real problems?

These subjects are mentioned only as aspects of what really seems to matter to the journalistic celebrities on television (aside from their speaking fees), namely,
who's gonna win?

Certainly, you won't hear reasoned argument on shows like Crossfire, The McLaughlin Group or The Capital Gang, where highly paid journalists and government job-holders yell and scream at each other and nobody is allowed to finish a sentence. We get shrill "opinions," most on the intellectual level of schoolchildren arguing on a playground. When someone does come forth with solid facts, everyone looks bored and unhappy, and the facts and figures are delivered so hastily that the viewer has no opportunity to review them. The program hits a dead spot until the guests can return to their normal mode, hollering.

Things are calmer on the Sunday morning Meet the Press and the David Brinkley show, where sentences are sometimes actually completed (unless the speaker is competing with Sam Donaldson). The only trouble with this show is that after you've watched a few months, you pretty much know what Sam, Cokie and George are going to say before they open their mouths on a
given topic.

Modern technology, with its speed, its literalness, its multiplicity of images leaves the viewer/listener awash with "entertainment," but he doesn't take away much he can muse on. It's like eating meringue. A curious law seems to be in operation: As technology improves, as the trickle of information becomes a flood, the less the clarity of reception. We get noise over substance.

In days of long ago, the citizen in his neighborhood home or lonely farmhouse buried in snow, received his newspaper a day or two late. He heard candidates on the radio. He drifted to the post office or the cafe and listened to the opinions of his friends. No doubt he was sometimes starved for information, but he was not drowned in it. He had time to think about what he wanted for his country, his family and himself, and when he went to mark his ballot, it was with sober thought. No doubt he was often swayed by prejudice or ignorance, but he did not consider himself a percentage point in a poll or the passive victim of media manipulators. He was a proud American voting for what he felt was right.

James Fallows, in the February issue of Atlantic Monthly, writes on "Why Americans Hate the Media." He complains that too many journalists are lazy, or fall into routine, and that they are only interested in confrontations and horse races, "the game of politics," not digging into the issues. I don't altogether agree. I think most news people work their tails off. I think it is the gabby talk-shows that give the impression of superficiality. It may be, too, that we as readers and listeners are too easily accepting of that superficiality. Horse races sell. We can and should demand better.

Bob Aldrich is a Los Gatos Weekly-Times columnist and feature writer.