Life of the party

Trapped by spending limits and voters' short attention spans, politicians dissolve into shtick amidst a clamor for substance. The campaign, it seems, has become more important than the candidate

by Jody Ericson

Bob Healey

In the dim yellow light of a Providence streetlamp, the reality of the elections last Tuesday became all too clear. Pulling up in front of City Hall was the Cool Moose van, and as its doors slid open to emit gubernatorial candidate Bob Healey, who was on his way to Haven Bros for some fries, those of us waiting inside the diner could barely contain our glee.

"There he is!" someone shouted.

"Who's he again?" asked a stout, blond-haired woman waiting for the bus.

The fact that the diner, the size of a walk-in freezer, was the Cool Moose Party's choice for campaign headquarters was vintage Healey. Having garnered only about 6 percent of the vote this night, the bearded, long-haired candidate picked through fries and ordered coffee -- cream and sugar -- while he waxed poetic about politics. His shtick was as clear as it had always been: Healey is an everyday guy who can't be bought by special interests and eschews the more glamorous aspects of politics, such as fancy campaign headquarters on election night.

But to say that Healey's campaign was any more real than the others would be a mistake. His style just didn't play well enough with voters. In Democratic gubernatorial candidate Myrth York's case, the same held true. Most political observers say she was too polished, too programmed by her handlers, while Republican incumbent Lincoln Almond seemed to suffer from the opposite of this.

In the end, of course, Almond won, garnering 51 percent of the vote on his "I yam what I yam" platform of running on his record rather than campaign promises. More interesting, all those candidates who went negative this year -- attorney general wannabe Nancy Mayer, general treasurer hopeful James Bennett, etc. -- lost.

These results can be interpreted two ways. According to Joseph Cammarano, assistant professor of political science at Providence College, "we've seen an increase in independent voters," in recent years -- people who have an understanding of political professionalism and believe in good government. Hammered by the partisan politics of the Monica Lewinsky case in Washington, they gravitate toward what John Della Volpe, a pollster for Lieutenant Governor-Elect Charles Fogarty and General Treasurer-Elect Paul Tavares, calls "real people."

On the downside of this, elections still boil down to who does "real" best. And one miscalculation can bring the whole thing tumbling down, as people are likely to equate how someone runs their campaign with how they'd run government. Even worse, observers like former Democratic consultant David Preston say that many campaigns went negative this year because of a "vicious, three-ring circle" between the press, voters, and candidates, with the latter the least responsible.

"Candidates react to the environment they're thrown into," he said Tuesday, as the band played an upbeat tune at Democratic headquarters at the Biltmore and exit poll numbers indicated that Myrth York had lost. Because of short attention spans, shoddy reporting, and, believe it or not, campaign spending caps, Preston says, politicians have been backed into a terrible Catch-22 -- they have only a few 30-second sound bites to get across their message, despite what voters say about wanting more substance. In desperation, many politicians go for the throat and attack their opponent, because it's easier and, they think, more immediately effective.

Nancy Mayer

Out of all the candidates, outgoing General Treasurer Nancy Mayer represents this dilemma best. Asked why he won by such huge margins on Tuesday, AG Democratic candidate Sheldon Whitehouse, surrounded by well-wishers, said, "We kept it clean. We had a good campaign operation and a good message."

But according to many political insiders, Mayer's loss is much more complicated. They say that her campaign for attorney general was hers to lose, as initial polls indicated that Mayer would beat the pants off Whitehouse, who wound up winning by 66.6 percent on November 3.

Mayer had high approval ratings for her job as treasurer. She was a feisty, courageous leader, just what the AG's office needed. But she committed the cardinal sin of campaigns -- she didn't poll first to see how voters would react to her attack on Whitehouse for using drugs in college. If she had, she would've known that most people don't care and that, even worse, her verbal assaults actually made Whitehouse more sympathetic -- and, yes, more "real" -- to voters.

Sheldon Whitehouse

Cammarano says that Mayer, 61, fundamentally misunderstood the drug issue. "It might be a generational thing, it might be something else," he says. "Anyone under 50 years old understands the moral vagaries involved in being in college during the '60s and '70s. He was a kid. So what?"

According to Cammarano, Mayer "basically threw it away," because what she had going for her was her "strength of being above the fray." By "going negative," she didn't capitalize on the public's perception that she had integrity.

But by the time Mayer and her campaign staff realized this, it was too late, says Preston. "When you're subjected to spending limits, you have access to one good punch," says Preston. Mayer had used hers up, and it was too late to go back and try something else. She had to press forward with the negative.

As director of Common Cause of Rhode Island, Phil West was the main force behind the state's Comprehensive Campaign Finance Law of 1992, whose purpose was to curb the practice of buying influence in government with measures such as a spending ceiling for candidates for statewide office and a $1000 limit on individual contributions.

When asked about this year's elections, he sees only positives in terms of campaign financing. In 1990, says West, "we had become the second-most expensive state in the nation in terms of spending on the governor's race, second only to Alaska -- ironic, considering our size."

This year, though, York and Almond abided by the $1.5 million spending cap, which forced them to do more hand-to-hand, versus televised, contact. "We want to force candidates into the public arena to face the voters," says West, which allows people more opportunities to discuss the issues. Indeed, says West, he saw more debates and public forums this year. "That can happen in Rhode Island much more than in bigger states."

But others see campaign-finance laws as a delicate balance that can be crushed the minute a candidate goes negative -- a likely scenario considering that about two-thirds of the money raised in political campaigns is spent on advertising and half of this goes toward negative issues.

According to Sue Pegden, a consultant for York and Fogarty, when Bernard Jackvony, the Republican incumbent in the lieutenant governor's race, launched an assault against Fogarty this year, the Democrat had to abandon a planned issues-oriented ad in favor of one that responded to the charges and threw some mud against Jackvony in the process.

"We had an education ad we were ready to put up, but we didn't have a choice," says Pegden. They had to shift their limited funds to create a new commercial, because "we couldn't let a negative ad go unanswered."

In the lieutenant governor's race in particular, says Pegden, press coverage was almost nonexistent -- no one took the office seriously enough to really take a look at the candidates. As a result, the ads became more important than ever.

And with so little time and patience among voters, candidates like York, who had to define herself above and beyond incumbent Almond, had little recourse but to put together a package wrapped so tightly that there was no room for error. She went for what the polls described as the Democratic Party's strong points -- education and the environment. No doubt, every stand she took had been researched thoroughly.

In this respect, York perhaps suffered the most from the political Catch-22. She worked feverishly on her campaign and pounded away at her message. She lost, some say, because she was too good. And this is what we've created -- a call for humanness in a system that's all too inhuman.

"The American myth of Mr. Smith goes to Washington is gone," says Preston. "Hopefully, voters will wake up one day and say, `This is broken badly and we need to fix it.' "

With reports from Ana Cabrera.