The Presidency by Hugh Sidey: The Melody of Democracy

The Presidency

The books, when they are written, may be titled The Longest Campaign or One Primary Too Many. If there is a martial ring to this Washington waggery, there is also an alarming truth. Political guerrillas for the 1984 election have assembled. They began probing ten months ago, a full year before Jimmy Carter did the same in his early-bird run at the presidency and nearly two years ahead of the traditional campaign kickoff. The upcoming presidential race will be the longest, most televised, most computerized, most numbing electoral spectacle in history. It could also be the most expensive, exceeding the record $275 million spent in 1980, if Ronald Reagan does not run and the Republican field crowds up with free-spending long shots.

Richard Scammon, the respected Washington political analyst, believes that in the next two years we will reach new pinnacles of political artistry. There will be more speeches that say less, more gimmicks, more fund appeals, more opinion surveys, more bad chicken than in any other campaign. Yet Scammon loves the thought. “I sit here at Christmas time,” he said last week, “and hear the Soviet Union’s Yuri Andropov tell the Soviet people what to think, while in the U.S. everybody and his dog is down in the public arena kicking each other around. It is wonderful. It is the melody of democracy.”

Melody smelody. The fact is that boredom is going to be a major factor in this marathon. How do you make a fellow presidential and yet exciting? Gary Hart lets his brown cowboy boots stick out from under his gray pinstripes, a hint of the hombre. John Glenn took an F-16 fighter up for a spin over Texas, and in California “landed” the space shuttle in a simulator, both stunts tailored for the evening news. But boots and jets will not keep the audience interested for two more years. Hart is rehearsing some showstoppers. In Los Angeles the other night to pick up $100,000 in new campaign money, he outlined what he would do in his first 100 days as President. One idea: fly to Geneva and lay a new nuclear arms reduction proposal in front of the Soviets.

Scammon believes the long campaign (already 38 primaries and caucuses are scheduled) will subject the candidates to extraordinary scrutiny. Thus it will be important for Alan Cranston not to appear as old as he is (68), Glenn to appear a little taller than he is (5 ft. 10½ in.) and Fritz Rollings not to seem as Southern as he is (Charleston, S.C.). More experts than just Scammon believe the world’s longest political race may be won by the man who is best at poking fun at himself. “They’ve got to kid their own eagerness,” says Humor Consultant Bob Orben, who wrote for Bob Hope and Jerry Ford. Already Orben is spinning jokes about Glenn “peaking too soon” now that Ted Kennedy has withdrawn. Orben’s business is booming. Without money, people can only laugh or cry, and they prefer laughter. Anybody who runs for office these days, says Orben, better have some good jokes. Just ask Ronald (have you heard the one about the pig with the wooden leg? . . . ) Reagan.

Former Vice President Walter Mondale, the acknowledged front runner (150 speeches in 38 states in 1982), is hardly an electrifying campaigner, but he knows the value of political humor. Having bowed out of the 1976 race quipping that he could not face all those nights in Holiday Inns, Mondale now claims that the inns have been redecorated to his taste. The other day he was spotted in Miami with a huge cigar sticking out of his mouth at a rakish angle, looking like a Minnesota country boy imitating Groucho Marx. It will not work. Cigars are a bad symbol. We will see them less and less in photographs of candidates.

The greatest political show on earth begins formally in just two weeks. Yes, two weeks. Out in Sacramento they are having a Democratic state convention, and they have invited the presidential contenders to talk to the 2,100 delegates. Five of the big six (only Reubin Askew declined) accepted; Dark Horses Morris Udall and Dale Bumpers are galloping out. The media plan a mass assault. A couple of networks are scheduling straw polls of the delegates after the oratory. The way things are going, the anchormen that night may be ready to project a 1984 winner.