Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 10, 1994 TAG: 9410100081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: KEITH MONROE LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
That means the people who make the ads - the media consultants - are scripting the fight. Just as you can tell a lot about a man by the clothes he wears, the car he drives or the dog he owns, you can pick up clues about a candidate from the media consultant he hires.
Incumbent Democrat Charles Robb picked David Doak, an established player - cautious, steady, deliberate.
Doak, 47, grew up on a Missouri farm. His father was a schoolteacher, and Doak is a lawyer by training. He entered politics as a low-level campaign worker but quickly wound up managing campaigns. One of the first was Robb's successful bid to become Virginia's lieutenant governor in 1977.
By 1985, Doak had a solid track record and opened his own mini-advertising agency devoted exclusively to political commercials for Democrats.
Today, he and four partners and 15 employees handle media for half-a-dozen candidates simultaneously.
``I do the strategy, write the spots, direct the spots and produce the spots,'' Doak said.
This year, in addition to Robb, his firm's clients include the re-election bids of Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, Paul Sarbanes in Maryland and Herb Kohl in Wisconsin, and Joel Hyatt's run for an open Senate seat in Ohio.
In an era of celebrity political gurus such as Roger Ailes and James Carville, Doak shuns the limelight.
``I tend to try to be a more low-profile person. These races aren't really about us. We, in our business, have less to do with winning and losing than people give us credit for. These races truly are about the men and women who mount the effort themselves. And their performance out there every day is what makes the difference,'' Doak says.
Republican Oliver North's media man, Mike Murphy, agrees. ``The client's the boss. It's his life, his campaign, his name on the ballot.''
That said, Murphy is anything but shy and retiring. At 32, he's already a veteran of many campaigns and is considered a Republican star. Like Doak, Murphy is at the center of a campaign consulting business with two other partners and a dozen employees.
Murphy is a hyperkinetic sound bite of a man who talks fast and funny in a voice much like Rush Limbaugh's. Though Murphy says he, too, tries to maintain a low profile, he admits that as he sits in an editing room giving a telephone interview, ``I've got a TV camera about nine inches from my ear.'' He's being taped for a documentary about the North campaign.
``If I spoke with a Louisiana accent, I'd be a genius,'' he says in a sideswipe at the adulation heaped on Carville, the Bill Clinton campaign consultant also known as the Ragin' Cajun.
TV crew notwithstanding, Murphy says, ``I don't think the making of the candidate ought to be the story.''
Murphy bemoans the focus on campaign gurus that ``creates the false perception we have in politics now that there are a bunch of us wearing lab coats, hanging out in the back room. That it's all rigged. When, half the time, we change the ad 'cause the candidate's wife doesn't like it.''
Murphy, like North, is brash and aggressive and talks like an outsider even though he's an insider. He grew up in a Democratic family in Detroit. In fact, his grandfather was an elected judge: ``Honest Joe Murphy, who was never defeated.''
He attended President Clinton's alma mater, Georgetown, to study foreign policy, but dropped out to help run a TV studio for House Republicans.
In describing his rival in this race, Murphy says, ``Doak has often worked for incumbents in trouble. He sits down with the incumbent, looks him in the eye and says, `Senator, here's the problem. Everybody in the state hates you. We can run ads about how great you are, but they'd change the channel. Instead, we're going to convince them the other guy's worse. I'm going to spend about 90 percent of my money trashing the other guy. So why don't you take a nice long vacation, see you Election Night, and make sure I get about six or seven million for airtime.'''
If Doak has made a specialty of incumbents in trouble, however, Murphy has made his reputation with obscure Republican insurgents who have won election by trashing incumbents.
Without him, there might not be a Sen. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, or a Sen. Paul Coverdell of Georgia. Christine Whitman might not be governor of New Jersey; John Engler might not be governor of Michigan.
This fall, his firm's other candidates include Engler in a re-election bid, Terry Branstad trying for a fourth term as governor of Iowa and Spence Abraham running for an open Senate seat in Michigan.
The matchup between Doak and Murphy should make for a classic slugfest. So far, however, the real punching hasn't begun.
Doak plays down the gladiator aspect: ``It's less like that than you might imagine. There's some races where outwitting the opposition might make a difference. But both of us have got candidates who everybody knows pretty well, so each of us has to spend less time worrying about what the other's going to do. The cards are pretty much on the table.''
Nor does the fact that the race is heavily watched really influence the media consultants. ``You get into the work of these things, and really every race is as important as another,'' Doak says.
Still, Murphy admits there is a kind of rivalry.
``Doak's a good consultant. We're all in the same union,'' he says. ``It reminds me a lot of Big 10 football coaching. We're all coaches. We all know each other. There's some respect, but, yeah, I want to beat his brains out on Election Day.''
At this time of year, people in their line of work are spread thin and the days are too short. Murphy says, ``We both need a haircut and both need to lose 20 pounds.''
With only weeks to go, Doak says, ``The biggest single problem in the business that people don't really understand is how time-consuming it is to make television commercial. You have to have time to think. You have to write it. Then you have to collect visual images for it. Then you have to edit it, which takes time. And you have to record the voice, which is a critically important piece.
``It takes four or five days. You have to start at one end and monitor the progression all the way.
It's equally loony for Murphy, who outlines a day in his life as the election approaches: ``The phone rings a lot. It rings at 4 a.m. with a production problem with some spots we're dubbing. Then breakfast with [Chairman of Project for the Republican Future] Bill Kristol at 7:30 to talk about what '96 is all about. Then go to a studio to tweak something. Went to the office, yapped on the phone to Spence Abraham about an ad, yapped on the phone to Branstad, yapped on the phone to North guys about ties. Then to the studio.'' And so on.
The third player in the race makes an interesting contrast to all this frenetic activity. Independent candidate Marshall Coleman's consultant, Ron Wilner, is 63 and operates not inside the D.C. Beltway but in his hometown of Baltimore.
He's a former radio personality and station executive who got an economics degree from the Wharton School and founded an ad agency in the '60s with Bob Goodman. Together, they pioneered modern political advertising, helping to elect Arch Moore, Linwood Holton, Trent Lott, Alan Simpson and Pete Wilson.
But these days, Wilner is an independent consultant with no partners or staff. He claims modern satellite technology, faxes and computers permit him to operate as a one-man band.
That makes him a logical match for Coleman, for whom he worked on an earlier campaign. This time Coleman is running as a sort of Lone Ranger. Wilner's only other candidate this fall is Dick Bennett, who is running for attorney general in Maryland. While Doak and Murphy are run ragged, Wilner is laid-back.
``We're going to have a conference call this afternoon with some campaign managers. This morning I was talking to the time-buying firm. I went to the bank. I walked my dog.''
Wilner expresses no concern about the race or his trailing candidate. In fact, he seems to relish the tilting-at-windmills aspect of the Coleman effort.
``I feel very good about this campaign. We're coming from the back and moving. It's not an ordinary campaign. You can take a few more risks if you're an underdog, and that's what makes it exciting.''
Wilner insists the road ahead is charted. ``We play a lot by ear, but we have a map. We have a plan. We have it financed. We do know what we're going to do right up to the final day. With the one caveat that we have to watch Robb and watch North and see if there are other opportunities we haven't thought of.''
Doak and Murphy say they, too, are ready for whatever comes as the campaign enters the final rounds. Each says he has a plan he'll follow, ads in the can ready to run, a schedule for the remainder of the race and contingency plans to counteract whatever surprises the other sides throw at them.
Doak and Robb have been criticized for being slow to take the attack. But Doak is unperturbed.
``There's a time and a place for everything. You've got to make your own plans and draw your own strategy. I don't think we've been slow to do it. We've held the guy's feet to the fire pretty well,'' he says.
Murphy seems puzzled by Doak's approach, but says he figures an assault is coming.
``I can't wait. We're ready for him,'' Murphy says. ``It's going to be the best free show in Virginia ... You'd normally have to spend six bucks at the multiplex for something like this.''
Keywords:
POLITICS
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.