Candidates use talk shows to reach voters

Few celebrities can manage to secure appearances on Oprah, Regis, Letterman, Leno, Rosie and Saturday Night Live all in one month. Despite all odds, presidential front runners have joined the ranks of those lucky few.\nVice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush have been making their way around the airwaves, rather than driveways. Both Gore and Bush have appeared on popular daytime and nighttime talk shows to show off a little personality and talk about their positions on issues.\n"TV is expensive," said assistant telecommunications professor Julia Fox. "If they can get one hour of free time, that's priceless."\nWith the conclusion of the debates, the candidates have only a few ways left to receive any free air time. \nDavid Weaver, the Roy W. Howard Professor in Journalism, said the candidates are trying to reach viewers who react negatively to regular "hard" news programming.\nAll six shows have millions of viewers, including many different demographic groups. With one of the closest presidential elections in history, any medium that reaches millions of people is important to the campaigns.\nMakana Chock, a visiting telecommunications lecturer, said the alternative media trend started with the 1992 election. She said President Bill Clinton started the wave with MTV and his now infamous saxophone.\n"You get the impression (that) you get to know them," Chock said.\nClinton appeared on several MTV shows, including "The Arsenio Hall Show." And his saxophone accompanied him most of the time.\n"In many ways, he won the election there," said junior Jason Meyer, "(Former President) Bush was still the staunch politician." Meyer is a political science major and is currently enrolled in the Election 2000 class.\nFox said this type of campaigning received a lot of criticism in the '92 election for "diminishing the presidency." Many felt talk show cameos trivialized the importance of the campaign and the office, she said.\nChock said image in this election seems to be almost as important as the issues. In the beginning of the campaign, Bush had to fight a perceived image of stupidity, and Gore had to fight an image of being too rigid, she said.\n"(These shows) give them the opportunity to show off other aspects of their personality," she said.\nMany agree the candidates have more leeway on the talk shows, because the questions are not as difficult as they might receive on other straight news programs.\n"They are not grilled as hard as they are by news reporters or during the debates," said Weaver.\nFox said she was surprised by the hard news substance of the questions Letterman posed to Bush during his last appearance on the show.\n"Letterman was drilling (Bush)," she said." (Bush) answered the questions in a straightforward way, and then moved on to sillier things."\nBoth candidates have appeared on Leno, Letterman and Oprah. But only Gore, not Bush, appeared on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show." According to The Federal Communications Commission, there is no regulation on equal air time in the talk show arena.\n"This is an issue that needs to be investigated very thoroughly," Chock said.\nChock said although many people tune in to watch the shows, it is difficult to predict the effect of the television appearances on the population.\nShe said she believes some people might end up supporting a candidate simply because their favorite television personality seems to support them.\n"I don't think the shows will have any effect ... except on the really undecided voters," said Weaver. "Among the majority, other things will be more important"