Political Communications from Ford to Obama

Speech given at the Dole Institute of Politics

The University of Kansas,

April 22, 2015

Good afternoon, everyone.

Let me begin by saying what a pleasure it is to be on the University of Kansas campus... and especially to be here at the Dole Institute of Politics.

When traveling across the state of Kansas – and I’ve had the privilege of visiting virtually every city and town in this wonderful state, typically with Senator Dole – I always most looked forward to coming to Lawrence.

Not just because it is a great college town – which it of course is – but also because of its history. Lawrence was founded by the New England Emigrant Aid Society... to foster Free State status for what was then the emerging territory of Kansas.

As a New Englander by birth – and as a member of the Union Club of Boston, formed by some of the very same individuals who financed the Emigrant Aid Society – this town has always resonated for me as a place with a very special and distinct past... and a very promising future.

So it is good to be back.    

My topic, “Political Communications from Ford to Obama”, is obviously a broad one.

And while there might be several ways to approach it, my intent this afternoon is to provide a personal perspective, drawn from my own experiences, including my time with Senator Dole.

My own background prior to going to Washington was as a journalist. I was a newspaper reporter, columnist and editor in Massachusetts... and I later covered the 1976 primaries for a small news service, PNS. 

Working at PNS – a feisty agency with ties to UC Berkeley and the Stanford Research Institute – actually gave me early insight into how technology would shape the future of political reporting.

The rapidly changing role of technology – and its impact on both politicians and the media - will be a recurring theme.

I was heading out to cover the Wisconsin primary – a big event that year for both Democrats and Republicans – when my publisher, Sandy Close, handed me a somewhat compact, but quite heavy, suitcase.

“What’s this?” I asked. “I already have a typewriter.”

“It’s not a typewriter,” she said. “It’s called a Telecopier, a prototype provided by Xerox labs. We want you to use it to file your stories.”

She then proceeded to show me how to use the device. It was all a bit strange – you slotted your piece of paper into a cylinder; shoved a phone handset into a cupped cradle...and then dialed up a receiving number.

This wasn’t the first prototype of a Telecopier. But, as Sandy proudly told me, it was the first one to cut the sending time per page from 12 minutes... to eight. You have to understand that most reporters – excepting AP, UPI and Reuters – phoned in their stories to a copy desk. And it didn’t take four minutes a page.

But I dutifully trundled the thing out to Madison...typed up my stories on my portable typewriter (I wish I could say on an Underwood for you “House of Cards” fans...but it was a lowly Smith-Corona) and then “telecopied” them back to San Francisco.

My fellow reporters thought I was nuts... especially because they had all filed their stories and were heading out to a nearby tavern... while I was still slowly sending my pages.

When I returned to California, Sandy said, “So what did you think?” I told her, “A complete waste of time and effort. That thing will never catch on!”

And that is how I completely misjudged a disruptive technology – called the fax machine.

As you heard in the introduction, my switch from journalism to politics didn’t come with Senator Dole... but with Senator Edward W. Brooke, a Republican from Massachusetts who was the first African-American elected to that body by popular vote.

I was Senator Brooke’s Press Secretary all during 1978...when he was up for re-election, seeking a third term. It was a bruising campaign, made more difficult by the Senator’s decision to seek a “no-fault” divorce from his Italian-American spouse... in a state that was 72% Roman Catholic...and only 12% Republican.

Unfortunately for the Senator, his spouse...and one of his two daughters...did not allow him to go the “no-fault” route...with all the negative publicity that implies. To make a long story short... we lost.

Unless you have been in a political campaign you will probably find this next point hard to believe... but I had given zero thought to what I might do next. Seriously – not one minute.

I flew back to Washington from Boston on the very first flight the day after the election... and found myself the only one in the office at 9 AM.

I sat up front, in the receptionist area, where I could control access and answer the phones.

Not that anyone was calling.

But then the phone did finally ring. It was some guy claiming to be Senator Bob Dole.

I was sure it was actually a friend of mine...who was constantly pranking me by calling and pretending to be Ted Kennedy...Carl Bernstein...Carl Yastrzemski... the Pope, you name it, he could do it. 

And I wasn’t in the mood.

“You’re Bob Dole... and I’m Jimmy Carter,” I said.

And I hung up.

I was feeling pretty good about this... until a few minutes later, when the phone rang again.

It turned out it was Bob Dole... and he was looking to speak with Bob Waite.

Fortunately, since I was at the switchboard... I was able to say, “Yes Senator, let me transfer you right away” and then, after a suitable delay, picked up my own line.

After a short pause (and with a somewhat disguised voice) I took the call.  After some brief pleasantries the Senator said he wanted me to come by his office... to talk about possibly becoming his press secretary.    

And that, in short, is how I came to join the office of Senator Dole.

Brooke and Dole had worked jointly on some legislation... thus we had held a couple of joint press conferences... and Senator Dole had apparently seen something in me.

I, in turn, had gained great respect for the Senator... and also had established a positive working relationship with his acting Press Secretary, my good friend Bill Kats, Jr.

In the end, the move to Senator Dole seemed to make perfect sense, in part because both Senators – Brooke and Dole – were national figures...and I already knew many in the national media.

Senator Dole also had the foresight to hire my Brooke colleague, Rick Smith – now better known as the great biographer and historian Richard Norton Smith – as speech writer.

So here we are in January, 1978.

From a politician’s perspective – from Bob Dole’s perspective – and from a press secretary’s perspective - what did the media environment look like?

First of all, in those days there was extensive state media coverage...coming out of Washington bureaus.

For example, David Bartels represented the Wichita Eagle-Beacon. Ken Peterson did the same for the Topeka Capital Journal.

Jean Christensen covered the Senator for the Harris Newspapers across the state.

And Joe Lastilic and Kathy Patterson did the same for the Kansas City Star.

These folks were looking for what mattered to Kansans.

This was not different from what I had experienced with Brooke, where not only the Boston Globe and Boston Herald...  but also the Lowell Sun, the Quincy Patriot Ledger, the Berkshire Eagle, plus the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor… all had bureaus.

In other words, there were a lot of local eyes on you.

On the electronic side, the world was a simpler place. There were of course the three major television networks. There was also Mutual Radio...and a late night guy named Larry King.

And if you were a national politician, the networks were a big deal. Getting on the evening news...or Meet the Press, Issues and Answers or Face the Nation...was a coup.

But just as important, nationally, were magazines – Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report.

There were as yet no cable news networks – the first, Ted Turner’s CNN, was still a year away.

The mails were an important media channel – press releases were of course hand-carried to the Senate Press Gallery to be picked up by the wire services and other accredited members... but we also mailed releases to over 100 weekly newspapers and trade publications back in the state.

Senators also recorded radio messages and interviews... and mailed those back to their states as well. 

There was no e-mail... so virtually all contact with the media was by telephone or face-to-face.

This face-to-face aspect was I think critical – it somewhat softened the adversarial nature of media – politician and media – press secretary relations. As wonderful as e-mail is, it cannot fully substitute for in-person conversation or even a chat on the telephone in terms of providing nuance. A smiley face can never quite match an actual human smile... or a chuckle.

In 1979 we were in a strange, in-between period for media – politician relations.

There of course had been Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. Investigative reporting was all the rage. Everyone wanted to be the next Woodward or Bernstein.

But there was still an adherence by most media to the concept of presenting information in a manner that did not betray bias.

Yes, everyone knew that Newsweek tended to be more liberal than U.S. News & World Report...and that the New York Times was more liberal than the San Diego Union.

We could diverge here and have a great academic discussion about whether or not there is – or ever was - any such thing as “unbiased” reporting... or whether that is even possible.

But, by and large, news reporting of the day tended to be more or less straight up... with opinions corralled in editorials, op-eds or by-lined articles labeled “analysis”.

There was also an unspoken but fairly clearly defined line between what was public and what was private.

We all know today that the press turned a blind eye to John Kennedy’s indiscretions. And Kennedy was not unique in that regard.

In some ways the expression, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”... was just an appropriation of “What Happens in Washington, stays in Washington.”

Mainstream media rarely crossed the line into the private lives of officials... unless the official – and here I am thinking particularly of Henry Kissinger – wanted them to.

Or if they were complete idiots – one thinks of House Ways and Means Chairman Wilber Mills of Arkansas, who famously – and very publicly, given that the police were present - cavorted with a rental date, Fanne Foxe, and dove into the Tidal Basin.

But, by and large, private lives stayed private – at least up until Gary Hart’s “Monkey Business”/Donna Rice escapade in 1987.

 Given the rancor between political parties today, there seems to be a tendency to see the Dole years of the 1970’s and 1980’s as a time of great bipartisan cooperation... and a golden age for political reporting. 

And it is true that there was notable cooperation across the aisles where political agendas allowed.

Examples, some of which predated the 70’s, included Dole – McGovern on food stamps... Brooke – Pell on higher education grants... and Ted Kennedy and several Republicans on health-related legislation.

And the quality of political reporting was certainly high. Print journalists like Jack Germond, David Broder and Mary McGrory were universally respected... as were broadcasters like Kansan Jim Lerner and his PBS co-host, Robin MacNeil.

Republicans, Democrats and media mixed pretty freely socially in those days. For example, I would occasionally have a drink after work with Tom Southwick, Kennedy’s press secretary... and if a Boston Globe reporter wandered over... that was fine.

I even played bridge in a foursome that included two reporters... and Jimmy Carter’s assistant press secretary.

The ethos was that you might work hard professionally during the day - even at loggerheads - but could lay down your swords and break bread in the evening or on a weekend.

But things could get pretty partisan during the day.

For a period of time in 1979 and early 1980 I was a part of a group of Republican press secretaries – which included Senator Howard Baker’s Tom Griscom and Senator Bill Roth’s Jim Brady – that met on Monday’s to co-ordinate media strategy for the weeks ahead.

Our primary purpose was to go after the Carter Administration, issue by issue. Which we did –hard - on everything from agricultural policy to the treatment of Soviet Jews.

And sometimes our competitive spirit bordered on the ridiculous. For example, the Dole press office and the Kennedy press office constantly vied to see who could get their boss quoted most by the media.

We started escalating the number of press releases we would put out... until we in the Dole office released nine in one day, which the press gallery informed us was an all-time record. Kennedy, of course, matched the number a few days later. Then the head of the gallery called both our offices... and said, “For God’s sake, guys, stop this madness”. So we called a truce.

Just for the record, our nine releases got better pick-up than Kennedy’s.

As I mentioned earlier, the first major shift in media political coverage came with the advent of CNN, the all-news cable channel.

The three-network monopoly, with its half-hour format and local affiliate news broadcasts, was broken by an upstart – Turner - who thought he could run news 24/7.

Well, for a nine-press release office like ours, this was like the Golden Coral coming to town – all you can eat journalism.

At almost the same time a fellow by the name of Michael Bloomberg...started a high-cost news service using subscription computer terminals... that he immodestly called “Bloomberg”. And a year later US Today was launched.

Each in its own way was a forerunner in the way news was to be gathered and distributed. And in each instance, technology was the enabler.

Satellites allowed CNN to broadcast almost immediately from virtually any corner of the Globe. Computers and high-speed connections allowed Bloomberg to transmit mountains of financial data instantaneously. And Gannett, using similar technologies, was able to establish regional printing plants to allow for the distribution of a truly national newspaper.

The Wall Street Journal began doing much the same.

At this time traditional print journalism began what started as slow decline, due to rising newsprint costs and other factors, including increasing competition for advertising revenues from broadcast.

Newspaper owners in many markets hoped to cut their way to a more healthy bottom line.

Often the early victims in cost-cutting efforts were foreign and domestic newspaper bureaus, including Washington bureaus.

Some shrank; some were folded into larger ones run by Knight-Ridder, Gannett and other chains; others disappeared entirely, replaced solely by wire service reports.

The Kansas City Star, to use one example, had been for many years employee-owned. In 1977, the paper was sold to Knight-Ridder.

It’s three-person D.C. bureau was allowed to continue for a number of years… but ultimately was folded into Knight-Ridder’s, bureau, arguably losing both dedicated manpower and focus.

In reaching out to a number of journalists to prepare for this talk, the demise of the mid-sized Washington bureau was cited by many as one definitive trend that helped change the media-politician dynamic.

One example brought up by Cheryl Arvidson, legendary reporter for UPI, Cox News Service and the Dallas Times-Herald, was the Louisville Courier-Journal, once one of the most respected and honored newspapers in the country.

Today, despite the fact that the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and one of the most important potential candidates in 2016, Rand Paul, are from Kentucky… the paper maintains no DC bureau.

But, as I said, this erosion in the ‘80’s was relatively gradual. Unless you were a journalist – or a press secretary or a politician – it may not have even been noticeable.

A second trend that began about this same time, according to Joan Mckinney, former Deputy Director of the Senate Press Gallery, was a decline in topic-specific reporters.

There had been individuals who solely covered agriculture… or defense…or tax.

According to McKinney – who had been a respected reporter herself as well as Press Secretary to Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina – by moving away from a focus on subject matter… to more general reporting, the result was often to chronicle who was winning or losing politically… rather than on the specifics of a bill…or its long-term policy implications.

Things also shifted on the electronic side, beginning with radio.

Radio had always had its share of politically opinionated commentators… going back to Detroit’s Father Coughlin in the 1930’s and, in the 70’s, people like Boston’s Avi Nelson.

But in many respects 1988 was a watershed – for that was the year Rush Limbaugh began broadcasting to a national audience out of WABC in New York.

It wasn’t just that Limbaugh was unapologetically conservative. He was also more than willing to call out those who were not. Citing a perceived liberal bias in mainstream journalism… he created an alternative universe for the like-minded. In marketing-speak, he segmented the market, carving out a demographic, giving them a voice and a home.

He spawned a host of imitators. But more significantly, he inspired a similar approach in the world of cable TV. Rupert Murdoch sensed there was an appetite for a right-of-center approach… and in 1996 launched Fox News.

This of course later brought us MSNBC, covering off the left-of-center segment.

In reality, CNN – and the networks – got squeezed from both sides. What we have ended up with is the broadcast equivalent of gated communities, gathering places for the like-minded.

This is typically helpful for politicians, in the sense that it allows them to select access to a broadcast audience that more closely matches up with their base, be it right of center or left of center. It also means they are more likely to get a more sympathetic line of questioning from hosts.

And it means they can energize that base…for purposes of re-election…a run for higher office…or around a particular piece of legislation.

Of course the other big technology shift that began to be felt in the 90’s… and accelerated after 2000… was the rise of the internet. The initial manifestation was e-mail.

It may be hard to believe today, but most media so distrusted e-mail in the beginning that they refused to engage in an “on the record” dialogue using the medium.

You could use it for initial contact… but the interview had to be conducted over the phone or in person.

When you think about it, however, that makes a certain kind of sense. E-mail gives the subject – the politician and/or his or her press aide – a far greater opportunity to shape the message. They can respond on their own time schedule, often after fact-checking and editing. In effect, you have the opportunity to put the reporter on “pause”.

By the time media use of e-mail came about I was in the corporate world, running a large communications, government relations and marketing function. I loved e-mail for the same reasons politicians and press secretaries did – it avoided foot-in-the mouth syndrome.

Over time, more and more media outlets came to accept e-mail communications as a legitimate interview format. Many – including the New York Times- still make mention that the response came via e-mail.

Many others do not.

But of course e-mail was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the electronic revolution.

Soon came the blackberry, with its encrypted PIN messaging; smart phones, including the Apple iPhone and similar devices; and a host of applications, from Face book, to twitter, to Instagram, that could reach out over the established media and connect directly with the public.

For politicians, connecting directly with the public, without the filter of professional journalists, had always seemed attractive.

Franklin Roosevelt, for example, frustrated by the Republican editorial slant fostered by conservative publishers in the 1930’s, instituted his radio “Fireside Chats” to reach over them, into people’s homes.

Ronald Reagan did much the same in the 1980’s with his Oval Office televised appeals to voters to put pressure on Congress.

But the biggest disruptive game-changer in terms of establishing direct contact with desired audiences has been the advent of social media, be it Face book, twitter or Instagram.

The use of social media over the past 15 years has revolutionized everything from politics… to law enforcement.

The Obama campaign in 2008 is a good case in point. As a first-term Senator, his candidacy for the Democratic nomination initially attracted only modest attention from mainstream media.

Hillary Clinton was widely seen as almost inevitable. But beneath the surface, a very different campaign was unfolding – one that by election day put the Obama team in direct contact with five million Americans…using 15 separate social media platforms.

This didn’t happen by accident. In February, 2007, Barack Obama met with Mark Andreessen, one of the founders of Netscape and a board member of Face book, at San Francisco International Airport. That conversation…and the subsequent recruitment of net-savvy individuals…led to the creation of what became a fund-raising and volunteer-recruiting juggernaut.

Al Gore may have claimed to have invented the internet…but Obama and the techno-team he attracted turned it into a formidable political weapon.

By the time he got to the White House he didn’t just have a political base – he had, in the words of the late New York Times reporter David Carr, “a database of millions who could be engaged and mobilized almost instantly.”

Obama wasn’t the first to turn the internet to his advantage. Howard Dean, for example, in 2004 effectively harnessed the new medium for small donation fundraising.

But Obama was the first to pull it all together.

This does not mean that mainstream media was unimportant to Obama’s ultimate victory. Of course it was. But in the early days the Obama campaign had something of a stealth quality.

They wanted to be included in the conversation by journalists… but they were also happy to have Hillary perceived as the formidable front-runner…while they quietly built their web-based infrastructure.

So it is no wonder that on April 12 of this year…Hillary decided to announce her candidacy for the Democratic nomination on her web site with a video and via twitter… and not to a room full of journalists.

An unfiltered message direct to the base… and no pesky questions from reporters.

Of course the ubiquitous and all-pervasive nature of technology today has also blurred the lines between media and the general public.

Is the person who captures compelling photos or video images of significant events on their cell phone – something that gets published or aired – a journalist?  What about a blogger who writes about politics? Is The Daily Show comedy… or journalism? And does the answer change if you learn that for a sizable portion of American Millennials… it is their primary source of news?

Much as there are today far fewer books published by established publishing houses… but many more books, fiction and non-fiction, published overall, thanks to the ease of self-publishing… there are also more people calling themselves journalists out there.

Some work for established web-based outlets like Politico… RealClearPolitics… Slate or Huffington Post. But many thousands of others work for on-line publications you’ve probably never heard of… or they have stand-alone, narrow-cast blogs.

Many journalists of my generation call this largely uncurated world of writers and bloggers chaos. My children’s generation calls it citizen journalism…and a healthy sign that participatory democracy is well and alive.

For politicians and their media handlers, it all presents a formidable challenge. How do you monitor all of this? How do you control the narrative? When do you respond to a blogger?

My daughter, who is currently at the London School of Economics obtaining a Masters in Global Media, a few summers ago worked in the Social Media unit at TD bank, one of North America’s largest financial organizations. She was one of eight university students solely dedicated to managing the bank’s Face book page, its LinkedIn and twitter accounts – and for monitoring mentions of the company by on-line bloggers.

What they did was a blend of marketing and communications activity – work that was considered strategic to the firm’s success – in a unit didn’t even exist a couple of years earlier.

Politicians, to be successful, need to make similar strategic adjustments.

I mentioned The Senate Press Gallery – where we in Dole’s office used to send our press releases in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. In those days there were 2,600 credentialed journalists. Today there are 6,500.

Political journalism has not died. It has morphed.

We got excited when we put out nine press releases in one day. Today a politician can put out as many tweets in an hour.

The reality today is that politicians have both an easier and more difficult task when it comes to dealing with the media.

Easier, in the sense that they pick and choose the outlets that are more favorable to their ideology and point of view.

More difficult, because with the advent of cell phone cameras and on-line forums and blogs, virtually everyone they meet might be a photographer or journalist.

Think back to the 2012 campaign, where a waiter at a closed-door Romney event recorded his remarks about the “47 percent”.

Nothing today is private. “Off the record” is a quaint expression from the last century.

When I look at press operations for politicians today, I do not envy their task in trying to manage such a fractious media landscape…and the many technologies and applications designed to connect politicians directly with voters.

It goes way beyond trying to operate a telecopier!

But I see great opportunity amid the challenges.

The sometimes adversarial relationship between media and politicians is vital to our democracy. And greater citizen participation in the process has the potential to increase engagement.

This is not new – Edmund Burke used the term “Fourth Estate” in a 1787 parliamentary  debate, arguing that the press should be allowed to cover House of Commons sessions.

Prior to that, the term “Four Estate” had been used to describe the common man.

In many ways what is going on today is in effect a merging of those two meanings. But the basic function of the fourth estate – to question the motives and activities of our public leaders – will remains the same.

And that’s a good thing.

Thank you.