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What I Learned
A sojourn in politics showed me why the press is so often lazy and why telling the truth is not always the best policyJournalists don't clap. For 15 years, as a writer and reporter listening to politicians speak, I'd affected the universal pose of my brethren: a slightly bored indifference, perhaps jotting down a note here and there, raising an eyebrow, riffling through the prepared text in search of a quote--but never, ever clapping. But there I was in Crystal City, Mo., on an overcast fall day in 1999, listening to a candidate I believed in, a candidate I had actually signed up to work for, a candidate who was uttering words I had helped write, and yet some magnetic force was keeping my palms apart. Old habits die hard, but, hey, I wasn't a journalist anymore, and I put my hands together. Very liberating. Earlier that summer I had left my job as a senior editor at TIME to become a senior adviser and chief speechwriter for the presidential campaign of former Senator Bill Bradley, whom I had known and admired since he came to talk to one of my classes at Princeton. A few weeks after I signed on, I mentioned during a strategy session that in an interview in a certain newsmagazine--oh, O.K., TIME--the Vice President seemed to have overstated his involvement in the creation of the earned income tax credit. The campaign's ad director leaned over to me and whispered, "Welcome to the dark side." I didn't think I was on the dark side. I still don't. But it wasn't the side I was used to, and my time there taught me a lot about both politics and journalism. I had just assumed, for example, that I would be good at spinning journalists--after all, I was one of them. But I was a bust. My instinct was to give a direct answer to a direct question. Mistake. After one of the early debates, I was talking to a scrum of reporters and was asked about a certain line of attack by our rivals. "It's stupid," I said. And then quickly added, "That's off the record." Suddenly, the pack was shouting, "Hey, you know the rules; it's too late!" I did, and it was. Here are a handful of other rules that I learned--or was rudely reminded of:
SPINNING IS JUST A EUPHEMISM FOR LYINGEx-Clinton spokesman Mike McCurry once said the job of a press secretary was "telling the truth slowly." It's a lovely phrase, Mike, but untrue. Spinning is selling a version of events that you want others to believe rather than the version that you know to be true. In my book, that's lying. It's telling a journalist that, no, that incredibly lame answer the candidate gave in the debate about Social Security--to which you privately said to yourself, "Where the hell did that come from?"--was exactly what we wanted to say. Which leads me to Rule 2:
DON'T DENY REALITYIf a reporter asks how you're doing in California, and you're down 30 points, don't say, "We're gonna win it." At least say something like, "It's going to be a struggle." The press appreciates candor and generally doesn't punish you for it. Look at what John McCain got away with. Speaking of McCain, here's Rule 3 for presidential candidates:
TRUTH TELLERS SELDOM WINMost voters don't like to hear unpleasant truths. And God forbid you ever imply that voters are lazy and don't understand the issues. If you insist on telling the truth, at least do it with a smile. Even the press prefers this. Happy warriors almost always trump truth tellers. Which brings us to Rule 4:
IF YOU JOIN THE CIRCUS, YOU'VE GOT TO GO UP ON THE TRAPEZEIf you're crazy enough to run for President, you have to do all the ridiculous things people expect candidates to do, including answering the same dumb question for the 112th time. You can't be above it all or behave as if you think the Republic is lucky to have you. Voters and reporters want to see how much you want it. So kiss more babies, eat Polish sausages and don't bother issuing that 37-page report on your prescription-drug benefit plan, and I'll tell you why:
THE DEVIL--AND YOUR OPPONENT'S ATTACK ADS--IS IN THE DETAILSSure, it's nice for a candidate to say he has thought through nuclear proliferation, and here's how he would deal with India's medium-range ballistic missiles. But the more detailed your policies, the more ammunition you give to your opponent--and the press--to use against you. Remember, the President is a CEO; he doesn't have to know how to make the widget, only that people need more and better widgets. If you lay out the fine print of your plan, even the press might be shamed into doing a little work to see if they actually work. Which leads me to Rule 6.
DON'T EXPECT THE PRESS TO CARRY ANY WATER FOR YOUA campaign colleague who researched the records of rival candidates liked to say, "If reporters did their job, I wouldn't have mine." I'm not saying that all campaign correspondents are indolent and superficial; just that if you want them to write a probing critique of an opponent, you'd better hand it to them on a silver platter. Campaigns do a whole lot more investigative reporting than investigative reporters do.And even if you give journalists the facts, they're often reluctant to go with them. When I was on the other side, I was constantly saying under my breath to reporters, "Make a judgment." Being committed to some he-said-she-said idea of "objectivity" often makes a journalist a neutral vessel of distortion. Correcting a candidate's mistake is not subjective; it's objective. At the same time, I noticed that people in politics tend to think journalists are biased toward one candidate or another. This is a deep misconception, which leads to Rule 7:
SURE, JOURNALISTS ARE BIASED--IN FAVOR OF THEIR OWN STORYNo reporter is going to turn down a story that will put her byline on the front page. I was always dismayed when people in the campaign said certain journalists were on "our side" or on "their side." Journalists are on the side of the story that gets them the most attention. But then why, you may ask, does the press always seem to be doing the same story at the same time? Answer:
THE MEDIA ARE LIKE A SCHOOL OF FISHWhen you're watching the Discovery Channel, do you ever wonder how those enormous schools of fish can all magically turn at the same moment, as if they were reading one another's mind? The reason is, they're not looking out at the water, they're looking at one another. That's how the press works too. Journalists spend a lot more time worrying about what other journalists think of their stories than about what readers or viewers might want or need to know. And because reporters tend not to be the most original folks, they're afraid of getting either too far ahead or too far behind. That's why, if things are going wrong with your campaign, you've got to right it lickety-split. In two days the media horde can undo strategies that took months to create.So is there some secret behind those cunning campaign strategies? Actually, what I discovered is simply that:
CAMPAIGNS ARE ON OFFENSE, AND THE PRESS IS ON DEFENSEBy that I mean, a campaign knows which move it's going to make, while reporters just react and try to figure it out. It's like in basketball--the guy with the ball always takes the first step; the defender has to adjust. Let's suddenly send the candidate to South Dakota. Why? Well, we're not exactly sure; let the press figure it out. Yes, there is more science to it than reporters think, but there's also a lot more guesswork masquerading as knowledge. And speaking of basketball, here's my final rule:
WHEN YOUR CANDIDATE IS 6 FT. 5, NEVER TAKE THE SEAT OPPOSITE HIM ON A SMALL PLANEWhen I made my first campaign trip to New Hampshire, I wondered why the senior staff got on the plane so early. I got the last seat, which was across from the candidate, who liked to stretch his legs and spread his papers across his knees. I got on very early the next time.Stengel is editor of Time.com. Go to time.com/Campaign 2000 for more election coverage |
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Cover Date: November 13, 2000
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