PROMISCUOUS PRESIDENTS: HOW MUCH DO WE WANT TO KNOW?

PROMISCUOUS PRESIDENTS: HOW MUCH DO WE WANT TO KNOW?

Although President Bill Clinton’s (1993–2001) alleged extramarital adventures received far greater coverage in the late 1990s than had indiscretions of his predecessors in earlier times, they are by no means unprecedented for U.S. Presidents. With a few exceptions, notably Grover Cleveland’s alleged illegitimate child who surfaced in the 1884 campaign, relatively few people knew of such liaisons and those who did either did not care or chose not to make them issues. For example, John

F. Kennedy (1961–1963) and Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969) were long rumored to have had affairs but the press refrained from pursuing the specifics too aggressively. Somewhat earlier, Warren Harding (1921– 1923) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945) were known to have mistresses but both also had strong wives highly respected in their own right. Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921) was widowed while in office and later married Edith Boiling Galt, with whom he had been rumored to have had a long-term relationship. The second Mrs. Wilson later was essentially de facto President after her husband became physically inca- pacitated, a condition hidden from the public by Mrs. Wilson. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809) became a widower early in life but later apparently had a long-term relationship, including children, with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. Although historians still sharply dispute the veracity of these claims, it may have been as hard for the public of Jefferson’s time to accept that he might have had a long-term caring relationship with a Black slave as to accept he had children by her.

Perhaps most potentially controversial, and least well-known, are recent claims that the U.S.’s only bachelor President, James Buchanan (1857–1861), was a homosexual who lived with a senator from Alabama,

a disturbing piece of news that, when discovered by his fiancée Anne Cole, led to her suicide. It is also possible that the married James Garfield, killed after being in office only months, had frequent homosexual flings (Hurst, 1998). If the press had not shown some restraint, how might these stories have played out? Is the public better off knowing or not knowing?

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The international press responded through their own cultural lenses. Several Middle Eastern countries (especially Iraq, but also others) presented Bill Clinton as a sort of immoral clown totally unfit for his office. They mused at how such a powerful country could permit such an irresponsible person to hold office. On the other hand, many Western European nations wrung their journalistic hands at how a puritanical nation was threatening to destroy a highly successful Presidency over details of his private life, which should remain private and have no bearing in evaluating his public performance in office. Only a few years earlier, the state funeral of former French President Francois Mitterrand prominently featured both his wife and his longtime mistress, and the children of each, among the mourners.

The U.S. Presidential Debates

An exception to television not dealing well with complex candidate positions would seem to be the U.S. Presidential candidate debates, first in 1960 (Kennedy vs. Nixon), and regularly since 1976 (Ford-Carter), 1980 (CarterReagan), 1984 (Reagan-Mondale), 1988 (Bush-Dukakis), 1992 (BushClinton-Perot), 1996 (Clinton-Dole), and 2000 (Bush-Gore). See Hinck (1992) and Kraus (1962, 1977, 1988, 1996) for analyses of these debates. Here the candidates have a chance to put forward their positions in more detail than usual for television and, most importantly, in perhaps the only forum where partisans of the other candidate will actually listen to them.

Still, however, the debates are typically analyzed by both media commentators and the public in terms of superficial appearances and performances. Polls and scholars showed that Kennedy “won” in 1960 with those who watched on TV, while Nixon “won” with those who listened on radio (Kraus, 1996). Gerald Ford “lost” the 1976 debates because of his Poland remark. Reagan “won” the 1980 and 1984 debates because he seemed friendly and trustworthy and stuck to generalities; the only exception was the one debate that he “lost” because he became too bogged down in facts where he was not comfortable, eloquent, or accurate. Bill Clinton “won” the third 1992 debate, which involved talking directly to audience members, a format at which he excelled. Third-party candidate Ross Perot impressed viewers in the first debate with his pithy, down-to-earth, no nonsense replies; by the third debate, however, these aphorisms seemed to many as shallow, hackneyed, and lacking in substance.

Debate Coverage. The media mediate between the debate itself and the viewers’ interpretation of it. There has consistently been much criticism of presidential debate coverage as being too superficial. However, Kraus (1988) argued that such critics often fail to accept the reality of debates and

Politics: Using News and Advertising to Win Elections 240

campaigns. In spite of their stated intent, people expect the debates to produce winners and losers. They are an integral part of a candidate’s campaign designed to produce a winner. The debates are part of a society that loves a contest and expects to be constantly entertained by television. The specific format of a particular debate is whatever the candidates themselves decide, because they must agree and will only agree to what they think will help them.

Most of this is not really new. The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 in Illinois are often seen as a prototype of pure political debate, but in fact they actually were much more like today’s presidential debates than we often realize. Candidate Abraham Lincoln manipulated the press and used the occasion to launch his national platform and campaign for the presidency in 1860. At least today technology allows the accurate recording of a debate; Lincoln-Douglas relied on the biased memories of each side.

The horse-race type of debate coverage has always predominated. In a study of the 1980 debates, Robinson and Sheehan (1983) found that CBS and UPI (a former newspaper wire-service, now defund) both devoted more space to horse race aspects than to any other, and 55% to 60% of the coverage failed to contain even one sentence about an issue. This type of coverage of debates is in fact very natural and predictable and totally consistent with other political coverage and what makes an event newsworthy (see chapter 7).

In a careful review of the 1996 debates and their predecessors, Hart and Jarvis (1997) conclude that, despite their problems, the presidential debates have been a positive influence on the political process. “Debates cut through some of the campaign baloney, ground political discourse a bit, sharpen points of difference, make the candidates at least faintly introspective, and restrain overstatements” (p. 1120). Even if they do not do any of these to the extent we might hope for, they do so to a substantial degree. As for how presidential debates have changed between 1960 and 1996, Hart and Jarvis conclude that the major longitudinal change has been a decreasing certainty and more tentativeness of statements and an increasingly conviviality and sociability. This may be due to what Hart (1994) called the “phenomenology of affect” engendered by the highly intimate medium of television, whereby everything and everyone on television strives to connect more with the viewer at the emotional level.

Effects on Viewers. What are the effects of the debates on the public? To begin with, at least the presidential debates draw large audiences, although far less recently than in their early years (60% of homes in 1960 vs. 26% in the last debate of 2000; Jamieson & Waldman, 2003). They are regularly followed by polls about the candidates’ debate performance. Campaign handlers know this and carefully plan to try to make a strong impact first.

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One very important, although fairly intangible, function is to activate the electorate. “Televised presidential debates may be unparalleled in modern campaigning as an innovation that engages citizens in the political process by building large audiences, creating interest and discussion among voters, and influencing voter decisions” (Kraus, 1988, p. 123). The research is inconsistent in regard to the effects of debates on actual voting. They certainly reinforce and crystallize existing attitudes and may actually influence votes. One 1983 study cited by Kraus showed that 58% of people said that the debates were more helpful in deciding their vote than were TV news reports or TV political ads.

There is one additional thorny problem of the televised debates, and that is how to handle third-party candidates. Presumably one would not want to include any and all fringe candidates, most of whom typically have minuscule popular support. In the case of a viable third-party candidacy, however, it becomes awkward. For example, in 1980 centrist Independent John Anderson showed strong support in early polls. However, to be included in the televised debates, both other major candidates would have had to accept his participation. Because one did not, it was only a two-way debate, and Anderson’s fortunes fell sharply after this exclusion. A different solution was reached in 1992, with populist billionaire third-party candidate H.Ross Perot. Perot had a substantial minority of the electorate supporting him, and Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George H.W. Bush apparently both thought that the damage to them from Perot’s debate presence would be less than the public relations damage if they were to exclude him, so Perot participated in a set of three-way debates. Conventional wisdom was that Perot “hung himself” in this format, to which

he was not well-suited. When Perot ran again in 1996, incumbent President Clinton and Republican candidate Robert Dole felt strong enough to exclude Perot from the debates.

Following the precedent of the presidential debates, increasing numbers of local candidates now conduct televised debates. Now let us turn to looking at how candidates can use the media news coverage to their advantage. Later in the chapter we look specifically at political advertising and its effects.