Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 29, 1992 TAG: 9201290231
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WANT TO SHIFT VOTES? DON'T USE TV
Despite their presumed clout, television commercials sway as little as 3 percent of the vote in national elections, according to an expert on the political process.Presidential elections are driven instead by "macro" forces such as war and peace, the economy and scandals, said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia professor of government and foreign affairs.
The press loves political commercials, Sabato told the Advertising Federation of the Roanoke Valley, meeting Tuesday night at the Patrick Henry Hotel. But research shows, he added, that most political ads are "completely ineffective."
Sabato showed some of his collection of 7,000 commercials dating from the first ones created in 1952 on behalf of President Dwight Eisenhower.
Those initial television commercials, he said, demonstrate how imperfect techniques were in 1952 and "also how little the issues have changed" before this year's collapse of the Soviet Union.
John Kennedy introduced the jingle commercial, he said, which a consultant compared to selling soap.
But sometimes, Sabato said, commercials are "very substantive . . . so powerful they are able to capture the essence of an election."
Such a commercial, he said, was the "daisy" spot used by Lyndon Johnson to suggest that opponent Barry Goldwater would set off a nuclear bomb.
That spot was broadcast only once before it was withdrawn, Sabato said, yet it "gave Lyndon Johnson a million bucks of free publicity" because of the controversy it generated.
That ad was highly effective in 1964, the speaker said, because it capitalized on a public perception created by Goldwater himself. A commercial is too short to create a public mood, he said, so the job of the advertising agency is to learn the public mood and "find a way to crystallize it."
Negative campaigns were common long before television was invented, he said, and the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater campaign was the most negative ever conducted.
Now negative campaigns are spreading to Congressional races, he said. They increase public cynicism and reduce the election turnout.
But in the television age, "you have to fight fire with fire," Sabato said. "An attack unanswered is an attack agreed to." People "remember the charges and vote accordingly."
In a TV campaign, Sabato said, a candidate must define both himself and his opponent before the opponent sets the definitions. The second goal, he said, is "to control the agenda of the campaign."
In answer to a question, Sabato said Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton can survive allegations of adultery, but he has been damaged.
It helps Clinton, Sabato said, that "this is a very weak field" of candidates.