Voters Vs. The Negative Nineties

By WALTER SHAPIRO

American democracy may be the inspiration of the world, but the transcendent spirit has dismally failed to uplift U.S. elections. Once again this year, politics has degenerated into a duel of negative TV spots, even before the desperation tactics that usually erupt in late October. In California, a barrage of blistering commercials in the Governor's race conveys the impression that Charles Keating was a piker in the S&L scandal compared with Republican Pete Wilson and Democrat Dianne Feinstein. Texas voters are so dispirited by the ugliness of the gubernatorial shoot-out that both candidates probably could be defeated by General Santa Anna.

Each day brings a new 30-second affront to fairness. A picture of discredited Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis slowly dissolves into the face of Democratic Senator John Kerry in a spot for G.O.P. Senate challenger Jim Rappaport. A Jesse Helms ad in North Carolina lovingly replays in slow motion his Democratic Senate challenger Harvey Gantt mouthing the phrase "whether it's sex selection or whatever reason." Evidence that Gantt lied when he earlier denied that he favored abortion in such cases? Not quite. Gantt's words were snipped from a longer answer at a press conference restating his consistent pro-choice position. Even campaign ads responding to out-of-bounds attacks now take on a further negative spin. A new spot for Alabama Democratic gubernatorial challenger Paul Hubbert begins, "Guy Hunt's launched a vicious negative campaign. He can't run on his record, so he's resorted to outrageous false attacks."

Must politics be as venomous and vacant as the atmospherics of a David Lynch movie? Perhaps not: a few heartening signs are emerging of a movement to reform campaign tactics. There is renewed interest in congressional proposals to require that the candidate or his designated spokesman appear on camera throughout all TV spots. "That way you would be returning politics to speech, not emotive symbols," argues Curtis Gans, the director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. "It isn't attractive television for someone to just stand there and bad-mouth the opposition." Last week People for the American Way petitioned the FCC to mandate that the candidate's likeness appear on-screen for at least four seconds in each TV commercial. Otherwise, the spot would not qualify for reduced advertising rates under current law.

Even as token a gambit as this four-second solution seems refreshing amid the depressing political landscape. It might be tempting to cast the media consultants as villains who substitute deceptive advertising techniques for high-minded dialogue. But many admakers feel as trapped by slash-and-burn campaigning as the hapless voters. "I hate going negative," says G.O.P. consultant Don Ringe, who is creating ads for Senate candidates in Colorado and Hawaii. "But all of us, Democrats and Republicans, are corrupted by the system."

The underlying problem is the astronomical cost of television time, which transforms each commercial into a precious resource. Blanketing a major state like Florida with just one 30-second spot runs about $250,000. "It's so expensive to advertise," explains Democratic imagemaker Robert Squier, who is working for Ann Richards in the down-and-dirty Texas gubernatorial race, "that your whole campaign takes place in 3 1/2 minutes divided up into 30- second segments." And sad to say, negative ads spark quicker and more dramatic movement in the polls than where-I-stand issue spots.

Cleansing campaign finance has stymied reformers for more than a generation. But negative spots -- not PACs and pandering to large contributors -- are largely responsible for public cynicism toward politics. That is why it may be wiser to target the attack ads themselves rather than the brutal cost pressures that make them necessary.

But how? Even defining offensive ads is a problem: What political purists really object to the recent Louisiana spots attacking Senate candidate David Duke for his KKK past? Moreover, campaign strategy has become so sophisticated | that it instantly co-opts most reforms. This year, unlike 1988, most major newspapers are carefully analyzing the factual claims in campaign spots and publicizing outright untruths. The unanticipated result: most negative ads are now a series of carefully crafted factual sentences that point to an erroneous conclusion. In Illinois, an artful Republican commercial correctly charged that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Neil Hartigan had been a director of a savings and loan that failed. The ad neglected to mention that the S&L went under in 1968, a decade before the current scandal. As G.O.P. consultant Don Sipple, who produced the spot, says almost proudly, "Politics is still a blood sport in Illinois."

American politics is clearly in trouble, but it is hard to imagine a short- term remedy beyond a sanguine faith in the orneriness of the electorate. Even the most idealistic campaign consultants are unlikely to renounce strategies that work. Few serious candidates are quixotic enough to refuse to descend to the level of their opponents' demeaning and deceptive attacks. The best hope remains the classic free-market solution: a voter rebellion against candidates whose tactics are an embarrassment to democracy.