Sunday, Jul 6, 2008
The candidates fight for couch time with Dave, Jay, Conan, Reege and the Queen of Talk.
Sep 25, 2000 | As the presidential campaign cranks into overdrive, the candidates are crisscrossing the country from greenroom to greenroom, bringing their messages to talk-show viewers everywhere. Over the past couple of weeks, Democrat Al Gore logged couch time with Oprah Winfrey and David Letterman. His running mate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, shmoozed with Jon Stewart (from Comedy Central's "Daily Show") and Conan O'Brien.
Republican George W. Bush also had his hour with Oprah. And he had his coffee with Regis Philbin, too, appearing on Reege's morning show Thursday wearing a snappy monochromatic tie and shirt ensemble, just like Reege. Green Party candidate Ralph Nader managed to visit Jay Leno right before Leno's "Tonight Show" was squeezed down to a five-minute monologue for the duration of NBC's Olympics coverage. A truncated "Tonight Show" was just fine with Gore, though, who made a surprise appearance Tuesday as Leno's cue-card holder. And remember -- if Bush had gotten his way, he'd be debating Gore on "Larry King Live," between commercials for Viagra and Depends.
Ever since candidate Bill Clinton blew his sax on "The Arsenio Hall Show" in 1992, talk shows have become a crucial stop on the presidential campaign trail. They're a way for candidates to get national TV exposure without having to worry about debates or equal time. They enable candidates to target specific voter demographics. (Oprah's daily TV audience of seven million is overwhelmingly female.) They give candidates the chance to clown with Letterman and Leno and look like self-deprecating good sports. Vote for me! I can take a joke!
Sure, the pundits usually scoff when candidates resort to the show-biz likes of "Oprah" or the "Late Show." But those show-biz gigs carry more weight with voters than a bucketful of opinion columns. This is a sad fact of modern politics: In order for a candidate to run strong, he or she can't afford to skip the talk shows. For instance, in a Newsweek poll released Sept. 16, at the end of the week in which he appeared on both "Oprah" and "Late Show," Gore had opened up a 12-point lead over Bush -- who had snubbed Letterman. (A Newsweek poll released Saturday had Bush pulling within two points of Gore, suggesting that he may also have gotten a bounce from his "Oprah" appearance.)
And the talk-show hosts are almost giddy with their election-year power. Winfrey hosted Gore on her Sept. 11 season opener; on her Tuesday show with Bush, she was full of herself indeed, boasting, "There were people on the street yesterday who told me that they were going to make their decision [about whom to vote for] after 10 o'clock this morning."
Ever mindful of her status as the Most Powerful Woman on the Planet, Winfrey approached the Gore and Bush interviews as if they were a sacred duty. Her goal, she told her audience on the Bush show, was to "break down the political wall of soundbites and practiced answers" and expose the "real" person behind the candidate. You could tell Winfrey was serious, because she interrupted Gore and Bush even more than she usually interrupts guests who have ceased to interest her. "I see America as a land of dreams, hopes and opportunities," intoned Bush with earnestly knit brow. "I wanna go behind the wall now," snapped Oprah mercilessly. I don't understand why Bush was so reluctant to debate his opponent; facing Al Gore for 90 minutes has got to be easier than keeping She Who Must Be Obeyed amused for an hour.
Winfrey has taken plenty of heat for focusing on the personal rather than the political in the interviews, and emphasizing character over issues (though she did ask a number of issue questions). But, I say, more power to her. After all, these are the same candidates who made "character" and "family values" -- that's code for "If elected, I'll keep my pants zipped" -- central themes of their stump speeches. Oprah met the candidates on their own soggy playing field and made them work. Under her persistent encounter-group probing ("Tell me a story about a time in your life when you sought forgiveness"), the frat boy shed sensitive-guy tears and the robot declared his love for his wife with a fervent romanticism ("she's my soul mate") worthy of Cyrano de Bergerac, if not Barry White.
What would happen if a candidate went on "Oprah" and collapsed into embarrassed giggles at her questions, refused to confess any sins or take a moment to "remember the spirit"? The candidate would get a one-way ticket to Dukakisville, that's what. The road to the White House goes through Oprah.
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