MISSOURI COMMENTARY: NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNS APPEAL TO INDECENT PSYCHE

A dismal campaign fuels a dismal time

Until we immerse ourselves in the next tawdry congressional election, this year's model will suffice as the meanest, ugliest and most worthless House and Senate campaign in American history. Election year 1994 has given democracy a bad name.

Americans are basically decent people with decent motives and decent instincts. Yet our political campaign process is designed to appeal to every indecent aspect of the American psyche.

Television continues to tighten its stranglehold on the American electoral system. It is the be all and end all of every campaign. To get elected to the House or Senate you have to latch on to megabucks for 30 second spots aimed at destroying your opponent. Nothing else really matters.

The media gurus claim that positive ads setting forth your views on important issues are to be avoided like the plague.

(1) If they are too icky-gooey positive (e.g., I am decent, have a nice family and have substantive positions on issues), the viewers will fall asleep.

(2) If the TV spots discuss important issues outside the existing narrow frame of political reference of the moment (e.g., foreign policy, education, environment, transportation, etc.), the viewers will fall asleep.

(3) If a commercial does cover important issues within the existing narrow frame of political reference (e.g., gun control, health care, etc.), as many viewers may disagree with your position as agree with it. Stay away from issues that are controversial and at the margin of popularity.

(4) Even those viewers who claim to hate dirty campaigns do watch and retain the image of a negative ad. A cleverly crafted negative ad repeated often enough becomes subliminally persuasive. Go for the kill.

For the past few weeks, C-Span has been carrying the campaign ads of the major congressional and gubernatorial candidates around the country. They all -- 100 percent -- fall into the 1994 formula: crime and my opponent is a crook, cheat, hack, idiot or jerk. (In California, Texas and Florida, there is the special added attraction of immigration.)

If high school students were required to watch this year's political television commercials, they would be hard pressed to identify any of the major issues facing our nation (other than crime). About all they could be sure of was that each candidate made convincing case that his or her opponent was totally unworthy of holding public office. They would also be certain that politics was a discredited profession to be avoided.

When it is totaled up, congressional candidates in 1994 will have spent perhaps a billion dollars, most of it on television clap trap. The only ones happy about it all will be the broadcasters, Washington lobbyists and PAC directors who help channel the funds into the unseemly process. The fund raisers will be the ultimate winners in Tuesday's elections. They will have paid their way into the Capitol regardless of what the voters decide.

The two most expensive races -- and the two ugliest -- are the Senate races in Virginia and California. In Virginia, it's a competition to see how many Republicans can call Ollie North a 14-karat liar: Ronald Reagan, George Schultz, Larry Eagleberger, Elliot Richardson, Colin Powell, Norman Schwartzkopf, Sen. John Warner.

There was an open day last week, so Nancy Reagan decided to take her time at bat to tell how North was not to be believed. North will spend over $20 million before it's over and may have himself a seat in the Senate from the Old Dominion and become a Virginia notable along with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry.

In California, the best that can be said of Michael Huffington is that he is willing to buy his own way into the Senate. He will spend $25 to $30 million of his inherited fortune. His stated goal is to be elected to the Senate and not do very much after he gets there. He is strong in his belief that the children of illegal aliens should not attend public school or have access to health care. He apparently believes that if his own illegal alien nanny had children, they should be enrolled in private schools and pay for private doctors and hospitals.

Americans are restless. There's a feeling that although things aren't so bad, they are sure to get worse. Americans want quick solutions to our pervasive ills -- solutions on the cheap. They want to do away with pork -- except the pork heading their way. They want programs to be cut -- except the ones they happen to like.

It's a dismal time and we have experienced a dismal election season that will insure it remains that way.

~Tom Eagleton is a former U.S. senator from Missouri and is a columnist for Pulitzer Publishing Co.