The battered broadcast networks bounced back to relevance this presidential election year, delivering images, buzz phrases and parodies that ricocheted on the air and then endlessly around the Web. Ratings soared. Even the driest of the TV debates outdrew the rest of prime time.
From the low-bar name-calling of “The View” to the sober Colin Powell endorsement delivered on “Meet the Press,” with Katie Couric’s comeback interview, Tina Fey’s defining impersonation, David Letterman’s faux hurt feelings and a closing infomercial that may have redefined the political ad in the mix, television had a heavier hand than usual in conducting the nation’s political business.
Twenty-one months of campaign coverage felt like the world’s longest reality TV show. Really, though, it was a collision of high- and low-brow political, entertainment and gossip outlets exploiting the campaigns to their own ends — for humor, for web hits, for ratings or partisan outrage — and tightening the nonstop news cycle.
But it worked. It made TV must-see again and, it’s fair to say, more than ever, TV impacted the outcome of the election.
Again and again, the campaigns mattered less than the media images of them. Those of us on the couch assessed “character” and “temperament” via style more than through speeches and official statements. The sight of Barack Obama dancing on Ellen DeGeneres’ show meant more to more people than his domestic policy talking points. The visual of John McCain shuffling around a televised “town hall” registered on a deeper level than his stump speeches. Fey’s spot-on Sarah Palin impersonation and Couric’s devastating interview were turning points in voters’ minds. Politics and entertainment merged in what Seth Meyers called a “snake eating its tail moment,” when Hillary Clinton gave “SNL” a shout-out during a debate.
There was a lot of garbage, but after years of being scolded for failing to ask the tough questions, television proved its worth as a truth-seeking medium in the 2008 election cycle.
TV is a great lie detector. The camera’s unblinking eye is better at observing than probing, but it does eventually force truth to the surface. Palin was terrific on TV, until she wasn’t. Prolonged exposure allowed the American public to move beyond Palin’s star-making turn reading a teleprompter. Couric brought an unrehearsed side of the candidate into focus even as the candidate railed against “the filter of the media.”
Similarly, negative ads were powerful, until they weren’t. Repetition and truth squads allowed viewers the time to weigh and reject distortions and untruths.
Television made the candidates excruciatingly familiar as they camped out in our living rooms through endless debates. Cranky or elitist? Too old or too inexperienced? Beyond canned zingers and market-tested answers, prolonged exposure revealed personal tics, body language and style points, judged by the citizenry in record numbers.
Obama’s small-screen charisma boosted by eloquence was inarguably telegenic. His young children likewise were made-for-TV cute. Some 33 million viewers caught Wednesday’s slickly produced infomercial, designed to make Obama seem at once presidential and regular. His campaign proved most adept at reimagining the political uses of television, updating the Ross Perot chart talk of 1992 with a hopeful 30-minute docu-bio-rally.
McCain’s grimaces and eye rolling, apparent in close-ups during debates, and his initial reluctance to look at or engage his opponent onstage, did not play well on TV. Often his battle-worn screen image seemed at odds with the battle-tested words he expressed.
The importance of mainstream media imagery could be seen in online efforts to compare and contrast the PDA’s (public displays of affection) of the physically close Obamas and the more restrained McCains.
Glued to the tube
In addition to glib talk and fist bumps, a remarkable level of informed debate was broadcast in 2008. Amazingly, 50 million of us gathered to hear back-and-forth on policy- wonkish details of tax policies and health plans. More amazingly, 70 million of us spent an evening sizing up the vice presidential contenders. During a particularly weak season of network entertainment (“Knight Rider,” anyone?), We the People chose Jim Lehrer, Gwen Ifill, Tom Brokaw and Bob Schieffer instead.
The surprising hit ratings for the debates gave way to television’s pundit love-in, overpopulated roundtable discussions. (Jon Stewart noted that the inexhaustible supply of opinionated pundits are qualified because they have “a face and a functioning mouth.”) When Donna Brazile, David Gergen, James Carville, Jeffrey Toobin, Paul Begala, Alex Castellanos, Gloria Borger and William Bennett engaged, the crosstalk was useless for anything but parody.
New techno-info-graphics, like CNN’s bars monitoring audience reaction (judging the sweaty palms of male and female observers) and analyst scorecards (monitoring who was pro and con on the candidates), further cluttered the screen. How long before the networks wire the candidates for live EKG scans during debates?
The unforeseen resurgence of “Saturday Night Live” was a boon not only to NBC but also to the world of YouTube, Hulu and the rest. As the economy tanked, how many work hours, in how many offices across America, were lost to streaming the latest Tina Fey sketch or Fred Armisen parody of John King’s touch-screen map?
For Coloradans, the oddity of seeing national broadcasts of the Democratic National Convention, taking place down the block, was a reminder of the weirdness of the media echo chamber. If you were standing in the crowd two miles from the podium, were you any closer than if you were at home, seeing closeups on the screen? And how strange was it to be huddled around the computer, live streaming, as if listening to a vintage radio’s fireside chat?
TV on the Web
Of course earlier campaigns ventured into popular media. When Bill Clinton played saxophone on Arsenio Hall’s show, the political media landscape shifted. When McCain announced his candidacy on Letterman’s late-night soapbox, he upped the ante.
This election was different thanks to the evolution of the web. The Internet doesn’t allow TV moments to fade, extending the life of every gaffe— as Joe Biden learned the hard way. The truthtelling that is political satire enjoyed a renaissance. The best TV jokes got an afterlife online, popping up in reruns faster than you could say “Huffington Post.”
The long media march created new stars — Rachel Maddow debuted to stellar ratings for MSNBC and Elisabeth Hasselbeck of “The View” made her bow as political warm-up act for Palin. Keith Olbermann edged out Bill O’Reilly in key ratings; both of them stole the spotlight from Rush Limbaugh. Our fascination with “Obama Girl” gave way to (complete with lipstick’d pit bull).
And so it was ironic that, as robo-calls were replayed on TV, the contest’s climactic turning point was an old-school media moment: Colin Powell dissing McCain and endorsing Obama on “Meet the Press.”
The only notable absence was Oprah Winfrey’s. The talk-show host endorsed Obama early on, but consciously avoided the spotlight during the campaign rather than eclipse the candidate.
That sparked speculation that, if true, would tie pop culture to politics as closely as Ronald Reagan did: The London Times reported that Winfrey’s name has been floated as Obama’s ambassador to Great Britain.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
