TV OR NOT TV?
Aspirants seeking political office need to realize early in their careers that precise, controlled television coverage is essential to any modern political campaign. It replaced the railroad's rear car platform of long ago.
It is a definite technique which must be learned and the sooner the better.
Far too many might-be political leaders take the wrong path at the start and it is a difficult, even hopeless, to correct the error.
Proper use of television cannot be a haphazard thing. It must be a well-planned activity sustained and guarded against it from other media. And, it can be over done in the wrong places.
“More” is often “less” in the use of TV. The concept calls, not grabbing at each and every opportunity to be on the air, but rather in precise placement of demographically prepared material professionally produced for maximum results. The campaigner who grabs at every street corner camera opportunity to be on TV reaps a quite harvest. He is shown at his average or worst, rather than at his best ...with all warts, wens, and wrinkles plainly detailed rather than rendered minimal by makeup discretely and professionally applied.
TV has become so common among us that it pays to pick and choose with special care which aspects of it are going to be used and which ones will be refused. A chance mention on a news show can be more harmful to the campaign than one think, being, usually, out of context and tinted with dangers of being mis-understood or mis-applied.
The Ross Perot campaign some years ago, clarified many aspects of how campaigning should be done. For the first time, on a major scale, we saw how each niche can be made to work wonders. We also saw examples of where and how one might easily go astray - usually through a lack of innovative attention to many details. Television is still growing. It is not yet a definite solidified, in-stone entity. It can be risky but it a politician's best avenue to high office available today. Neither,is it sacrosanct. It does not stand too well alone and it often the skill with which it is balanced with the use of other media which reaches the required voters.
A modern campaigner ignores television at his own peril. It can also be wrongly used if one thinks of it in a limited sense of being a mere entertainment form. There is a vast difference between appearing as emcee on “Saturday Night Live and in being a guest on “Meet The Press”.
Few of us in the voting public, really understand how deeply television has affected our lifestyles. The changes have been profound. We need to reflect on our voting practices more than ever before.
A.L.M, December 13, 2003 [c474wds]
