B Y J A M E S C A R V I L L E
BEAT THE PRESS Bill Clinton did a number not only on Bob Dole but also on the press corps Don't worry — I'm not going to gloat. The voters made a wise, sensible choice on November 5. They stuck by a President who has a proven record of success. It's as simple as that. There ain't no need for rubbing it in anyone's face. People are already starting to feel sorry for Bob Dole. Always happens. As soon as the concession speech begins, we think about what it must feel like to say "uncle" in front of millions of Americans. We feel the loser's pain. Personally, I don't waste undue sympathy on the candidate. Bob Dole gives just as good as he gets. Actually, he didn't even get that much. Republicans went after him harder in the primary than we ever did in the general. More importantly, Bob Dole would never have made a good President. As a young man, he proved that he was courageous in war and in recovery. And then for 35 years, he proved to be a fine legislative deal-maker. But he never proved that he had a vision for the nation. He never proved that he was capable of thinking much beyond Inauguration Day. So I save my sympathy for the Dole campaign workers — the young staffers who gave their heart and soul to their candidate and now have no idea how they're going to pay their rent. While hundreds of campaign workers from the winning team will soon find gainful employment throughout the executive branch, many members of the losing team are cleaning out their apartments and heading back to live at home with Mom and Dad, weighed down by months of greasy Chinese take-out and lots of bad memories of a campaign run amok. I've been there. It takes months to recover. The only real cure is getting back on the horse and winning a big election the next time around. The emotion of the race is often lost on the press. Never more so than this year. I cannot believe how many times I've read and seen commentators whining that the race was not exciting enough. For years these guys are up on their high horses complaining that we don't have enough civility and rational discussion in our campaigns. And then we get a campaign with some civility and rational discussion and the press gets bored. Now, there are plenty of constructive ways of dealing with a little boredom if you're a reporter. For one thing, you could expand your time horizon beyond a week and actually do some reporting on longer-term trends. A little over a year ago, I was damned near sure that the Republicans were going to hoodwink Americans into accepting a regressive flat tax. Somehow the tides turned. I still haven't read anything that seeks to explain what happened. The reporters who traveled with the candidates were just plain lazy. Leaving aside the the issue of longer-term reporting, the traveling press simply missed good stories right under their noses. I'll give you two classic examples from the Vice President's travels. Back in September, the Vice President visited a new housing development in inner-city Philadelphia that was making a real difference in the lives of low-income families. Problem was, the development got its original grant from his vice-presidential rival Jack Kemp's Department of Housing and Urban Development. Whoops! Not one reporter caught the flub. In October, the Vice President did Minority Whip David Bonior a big favor by holding a rally with him in his district in Michigan. The event could not have been staged more beautifully. Right behind the candidates was a rolling river and a huge bridge that was getting a much-needed expansion thanks to David Bonior's pull in Congress. It was such an attractive scene that one local paper ran a half-page photo with the headline "GORE-GEOUS DAY" in 72-point type. But you know what? Not one reporter pointed out the fact that the expansion of the bridge was necessitated by the increased commerce generated by NAFTA — and that David Bonior was NAFTA's most powerful opponent in Congress. They missed the irony completely. Instead of doing their homework, the press put their creative energies into trumping up easy news. I've already written about the practice of commissioning crappy polls that jump all over the place and generate a false picture of a race with lots of momentum changes. What's even worse, the commentators who regularly rail at people like me for cheapening the national debate actually tried to get the candidates to sling more mud at each other. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd was so blatant about it, she ran a piece with the headline "A Plea for Incivility." The press wanted easy lead paragraphs, simple formulas, straightforward plot lines based on conflict and process rather than substance. And when they didn't get it, they got frustrated. Did you happen to catch the President's post-election press conference? Some reporter actually asked the President if there was anything he could have done to make the race more exciting. In other words, was there anything the President could do to make that reporter's job more lively. Sure, he could have played his hand poorly and let the race tighten up. Better yet, he could have let himself get lured into taking a few pot shots at his opponent. Instead, the President stayed disciplined and on message. In doing so, he stole the media's thunder even more effectively than he stole the Republicans'. He would not let the press dictate the course of this race. He gave them no red meat. I was very proud. Did the press corps focus on the sizzle and not the steak in Campaign '96? Bark back in Table Talk.
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