Lost in Never-Never land

We're sometimes called "the boys," even though some of us are in our sixties and many now are women. We believe, ignoring all evidence to the contrary, that we're in a competitive game, not a bottom-line enterprise. We form gangs, point fingers, call names, and engage in the sort of unruly behavior that prompted one manager in Denver to tell his staff (in a memo leaked to The Washington Monthly): "I'd like the rubber-band wars to stop. And the throwing of pencils, paper wads, and fruit." In a word, we're journalists - living confirmation of a statement in the old Mary Martin production of Peter Pan that wide-eyed children and seasoned adults are not so very different after all: "We remain the same throughout, merely passing in these years from one room to another, but always in the same house."

The statement is especially true of reporters covering national politics. Every four years we enter a chamber where, as in the playroom theatrics of childhood, we create our own reality, change it at whim, alter it to suit our fancy. It's the alcove of the early presidential primaries, in which no candidate has yet secured a delegate majority and where we are thus at liberty to project, speculate, and stargaze, with nothing at stake but our credibility.

In this campaign season's early phase the game was even more diverting than usual. We didn't just kill candidacies off. We resurrected them and killed them again, as in playground wars of old. Each week, at times every couple of days, our sand castle consensus was kicked down and eagerly rebuilt. But then, on or about March 12, far sooner than we had hoped, the dreaded specter was upon us: game over, drama dead, Bob Dole - bob dull, as The Washington Post called him in one headline - sews up nomination. Time to go home and eat all our broccoli.

Much of the campaign coverage up to that point was a rebellion against the idea that broccoli time was near - even though history was in Dole's corner: since the modern primary system took shape, the Republican party's pre-season front-runner has never been denied the nomination, and Dole was the undisputed front-runner. His national organization, heavyweight endorsements, and ample funds gave him a huge advantage in the "front-loaded" schedule. Weekly, multistate contests started March 5 with nearly all delegates selected by April 1. With this schedule, tailor-made for an establishment choice like Dole, it would have been extraordinarily difficult for outsider candidates like Pat Buchanan, Lamar Alexander, and Steve Forbes to be nominated. Their strategies entailed getting boosts from strong showings in Iowa and/or New Hampshire, but "front loading" in past years had made those states increasingly irrelevant; even if an upstart candidate did well in one of them - like Gary Hart in 1984, Dole in 1988, Paul Tsongas in 1992 - the later contests came too fast and furious to allow him to capitalize. Hart, Dole, and Tsongas lost in the end.

Usually, the Democrats can be relied on to provide journalistic fun and games. But this year - for the first time since 1964 - there was no Democratic contest. If we were to report a horse race, it would have to be on the Republican side. And we had to report a horse race, even if it meant turning a blind eye to Dole's advantages. Journalists penned up in Washington for four years by tight travel budgets had been given the go-ahead to hit the trail, and were not about to be denied; veteran Boys of Winter were ready to hold court and swap stories again in Des Moines and Manchester; newcomers were lining up impatiently for a seat on the campaign bus.

And this year there were deeper factors at work, more important than mere professional needs. After a decade of criticism for being out of touch with the public, campaign reporters and ordinary citizens were now finally in synch: something was stirring in the national psyche because something was missing in our political life; dissatisfaction and anxiety were running high; it was hard to put one's finger on the ache - it stemmed in part from the doubts and confusion and lack of direction following the cold war's end - but Dole, so widely seen as yesterday's man, was no cure; polls showed solid majorities of voters yearning for an alternative.

For all these reasons, we were intent - like Peter Pan's band of urchins, who begged Wendy to spin them bedtime yarns - on having a dramatic story, with conflict and suspense and a challenger with a fighting chance to whip Dole. If he didn't exist we would have to invent him. And last year's Colin Powell boomlet was a striking first effort at such news-as-wish-fulfillment. It was an attempt via cover story, live interview, and lead editorial to conjure up the ultimate political adventure, the perfect challenger for a public disgusted with politics, a leader who was truly above the fray: say he's great, build him up, lure him in, will it to happen, and make it happen. But, given the public loathing for politics, Powell paradoxically could only fulfill the expectation of ultimate leader by not leading. He could never run and never serve and thus was the ultimate Never Land candidate.

That left the news media with a less heroic choice in the multimillionaire flat-tax advocate Steve Forbes. He partly inflated his own balloon - in this case, with a TV ad campaign that got him aloft in the polls and prompted the press to pump in more hot air. By Jan-uary, Forbes was smiling buoyantly from magazine covers and front pages and leading Dole in polls. But almost immediately, he ran afoul of the media's conflicting needs. As Powell understood, they require not only heroes but also antagonists - every story needs its Captain Hook - and so will seek to reveal a candidate's darker side. True to form, reporters leapt upon evidence that Forbes was an ordinary politician in the guise of an anti-politician (his negative ads being a case in point) and that his tax plan would have benefited the wealthy, including the Forbes family, rather than the middle class. Under this assault, Forbes plummeted. By the eve of Iowa, he seemed almost as much a make-believe candidate as Powell: he had peaked and fallen to rth before a single vote had been cast.

Still badly needing a major challenger to Dole - who still had history and organization on his side - the press moved on to Iowa. There was only one thing to do. Ignore history, take each caucus and primary as a new game, and make the nomination contest as close and dramatic as Peter Pan's description of his island playground: "Nicely crammed, with hardly any space between one adventure and another."

Here's how the adventure unfolded, as told by some of the Lost Boys and Girls of the campaign trail:

February 12, Iowa. Dole wins, Buchanan comes in second, ex-Tennessee Governor Alexander third, Forbes fourth, but much is made of the narrowness of Dole's victory and his alleged feebleness. On the Today show, for instance, Bryant Gumbel - playing a post-race commentary game with a panel of three NBC journalists - asks for five-word headlines on the previous night's results.

Tim Russert: "Race up for grabs."

Gwen Ifill: Very good! "Buchanan on a roll."

Lisa Myers: "Disappointing night for Bob Dole, who was . . ."

Gumbel: Hey. Whoa! That's more than five words (laughter).

Russert: Let me help her. Second headline: "Alexander, man to watch."

There you have it: Dole won but really lost, Buchanan and Alexander lost but really won, his challengers are potent indeed. This is the consensus of the press corps, and the games have begun: every misstep by the front-runner must be treated as a potentially fatal fall, every little twitch must be covered like an earthquake.

February 20, New Hampshire. Indeed, Buchanan's one-point victory here over Dole is cast as The Big One. Its implications are hyped and then the hype is hyped, with Dole's underlying advantages all but forgotten. Even the usually serious Ted Koppel radiates childlike glee, chortling on Nightline that "we in the media got what we wanted in New Hampshire. . . . After tonight, nothing is preordained! Everything is possible!" Now the sweeping generalizations and dubious speculations come fast and furious, all prompted by a few thousand votes in one tiny state.

• Dole in a tailspin. When Dole won Iowa by 3 percent, he was weak, and second-place finisher Buchanan was strong. But now that Buchanan has won New Hampshire by 1 percent, the commentator is strong, second-place finisher Dole in dire straits. On Nightline, Koppel argues: "It now seems entirely possible that Senator Dole will . . . snatch defeat from the jaws of victory." On Today, Gumbel speaks of "a fading Bob Dole." On The Boston Globe op-ed page, staff writer David Nyhan declares: "Someone should alert the bugler. It may soon be ‘Taps' for Senator One Last Mission."

• Buchanan in the stratosphere. Although his limitations are the same as before - it's unclear that this hard-line populist can win much more than 30 percent of the vote in any state - Tom Brokaw announces that New Hampshire "created a new frontrunner." Without declaring the race over, Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times predicts (on Inside Washington) that "Buchanan is going to go into the convention with more delegates than anyone else," and NBC's Ifill says "he gave a sucker punch to the Republican party tonight. They are floored and now they can't stop him. . . ." Buchanan's liftoff is fueled partly by the media's need for a strong challenger, partly by the affection many journalists feel for Buchanan as a sometime media man - a hail fellow who understands their need for fresh angles, "filing time," etc. - despite ideological differences.

(At the same time, a frenzy of news reports - prompted by a study by the Center for Public Integrity, a liberal watchdog group - play up Buchanan's selection of one Larry Pratt, leader of Gun Owners of America, as campaign co-chair. Pratt attended a meeting in Colorado in 1992 to discuss FBI conduct in the controversial Ruby Ridge standoff and members of the white supremacist Aryan Nation also attended. News organizations including ABC and NPR make much of the supposed extremist link, even though Pratt denounces Aryan Nation at a press conference. Detecting a whiff of McCarthyism in some of the coverage, Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant writes:"There is not one shred of evidence that Pratt has ever uttered one bigoted or anti-Semitic word in his life. But because he has attended meetings . . . with people who have, Pratt has been tarred with their views and this tar is now applied to Buchanan. What this amounts to . . . is guilt by the associations of one's associate.")

• Alexander airborne. Because he does better than expected, Alexander comes off as a winner by finishing third, even though he lacks money and organization and any persuasive scenario for winning a primary. New Hampshire "catapulted Lamar Alexander into the front rank of contenders," according to a Boston Globe report. "It may be that Mr. Alexander . . . gained the most from today's voting," writes R.W. Apple in The New York Times. Alexander goes on to lose every primary.

• New candidates on the runway? Most filing deadlines for primaries have passed, making it all but impossible for a new candidate to enter. But hope obscures the facts at CBS, where Dan Rather asks: "What are the chances a Colin Powell or even a Jack Kemp reconsiders and finds a way to get in this?" Over on CNN, Bernard Shaw poses a similar question to Powell booster Ken Duberstein, who dismisses the idea of a Powell candidacy and adds that writing Dole off "is vastly premature." This is solid, common-sense advice. Needless to say, it is not heeded.

• Forbes crashes, burns. A fourth-place finish in New Hampshire is widely reported to have ended the effective candidacy of Forbes. As ABC's Cokie Roberts cracks on Nightline, "He was dead after Iowa, and he's still dead" - prompting Peter Jennings, marveling at her acumen, to declare: "She's made us dispensable, Ted."

February 27, Arizona. Dispensable until tonight, that is. Forbes wins the Arizona primary with 33 percent of the vote and is . . . REBORN! NBC's Jack Ford reports that "Arizona's capital, Phoenix, is named for a mythical bird recreated out of its own ashes. [Given] what's happened to the Steve Forbes presidential campaign, it may well be the perfect symbol." Rather and Brokaw deem Forbes the new front-runner and a Wall Street Journal editorial declares: "The Forbes victory . . . makes him a serious contender for the nomination."

And what of Dole? Although he wins North and South Dakota this very night, the media say he's in very deep doo-doo. Koppel declares "it is still far too early to be drafting a funeral oration . . . but the candidate is not looking well, politically speaking." CNN's William Schneider says: "It may be fatal."

The doo-doo around Dole is piled so high by TV journalists on primary night partly because of a Voter News Service exit poll. It prompts CNN's Judy Woodruff, breaking in on Larry King Live, to report that "Bob Dole will come in third in Arizona - this is a major setback to the Dole presidential campaign," inspiring King to respond: "As always, right on top of the scene, Judy Woodruff." In fact, the poll is wrong (evidently skewed by a Forbes absentee ballot drive weeks earlier) and Dole finishes a more respectable second. Only NBC is skeptical enough to avoid consigning him to third. Speaking of the poll snafu the next day, CNN political director Tom Hannon tells The Dallas Morning News: "It's going to redouble our sense of caution, no doubt about it. Once in a while we misfire."

In fact, on a twenty-four-hour-a-day news cycle, with competitive pressures giving us an itchy trigger-finger, misfiring is not that unusual. Consider how news organizations, citing the Arizona results, began hawking a half-baked revolving-winner theory - the notion that no candidate can win consistently or secure a delegate majority, and that a "brokered convention" is glimmering at the end of the trail. Reporting on brokered conventions is the ultimate in journalistic wish-fulfillment. They never happen in practice (there has not been one in forty-four years) so one has to squeeze as much drama as one can out of the idea when it still seems possible in theory, drawing expansive conclusions from scraps of "evidence." Thus a New York Times news analysis suggests that, after Arizona, "every victory by a candidate in one state will be canceled out by another candidate's win somewhere else." A Washington Post editorial declares: "Anybody can enter, anybody can win. That now seems the rule." Both papers say a contested convention is plausible. So does Time magazine in a major takeout with a "how Dole might lose" leitmotif, positing scenarios for his defeat in nine states from South Carolina to California (e.g., "Dole hasn't clinched the nomination by March 26 and California voters decide he's overdue for retirement"). In fact, Dole goes on to landslide wins in every one of those states.

What all this hokum on "brokered" conventions points up is a weakness of even veteran journalists in mastering basic ideas. Even if no candidate had a delegate majority going into a GOP convention (highly unlikely given that most primaries are winner-take-all, which creates and favors front-runners) the convention could not be "brokered" in some back room. For one thing, there would be leaks, and the media would not let back-room negotiations stay secret for long. For another, party bosses have far less clout than they once did and party activists who become delegates are not robots. What journalists were really hoping for was not a "brokered convention," resolved in secrecy, but a free-for-all, with chaos on the floor.

March 2, South Carolina. This is the last small state contest before the weekly, multistate calendar kicks in and Dole can fully capitalize on his national political machine. Despite signs that Dole has South Carolina cornered - strong leads in the polls, support from a solid chunk of Christian conservatives, backing from the GOP governor and other state bigwigs - some news organizations cling, in the days before the vote, to the notion that the Kansan is sinking here and in dire jeopardy elsewhere. The Boston Globe reports that Dole is "politically shell-shocked, financially drained, and facing a . . . contest in South Carolina that could be tailor-made for Patrick J. Buchanan." On Nightline, Koppel asks Hal Bruno, the network's political director, if Buchanan can be propelled, via South Carolina, to the nomination, Bruno shoots back: "And how he can!"

In the event, Dole crushes Buchanan and Alexander in South Carolina and polls show him with a commanding lead in all eight Junior Tuesday states that are to vote three days later. Even so, Time continues to cling to the idea that Dole could falter and party leaders could give the prize to someone else.

March 5. Junior Tuesday. Dole wins Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, Colorado, and Rhode Island. Alexander is swamped and Forbes is flailing. Despite their initial yearning for an alternative, GOP voters are falling into line behind the establishment man as they come to view him as the main alternative to Buchanan. ABC's Jeff Greenfield quotes Republicans who attribute Dole's victory to factors the press itself had acknowledged before Iowa - money, organization, endorsements, broad (if not deep) appeal, and a schedule tailored to an establishment candidate.

"According to this view, Dole wrapped up the nomination last year when his more formidable rivals chose not to run. Iowa and New Hampshire were media frenzies, but essentially bumps in the road," Greenfield reports on Nightline. Ted ("Nothing is preordained! Everything is possible!") Koppel can only say, in words that apply as much to print types, including me, as to TV stars: "Perhaps there is a special little corner of hell reserved for journalists where [we] will be forced to watch and listen to an endless loop of our own inaccurate analyses and projections. . . ."

But this isn't the last word. Later on the show, Jennings, Koppel, and others are back arguing that Forbes remains a formidable challenger. According to Bruno, Forbes poses a threat to Dole and is "kind of like a wealthy guerrilla band, where he's got the latest in modern weapons."

In reality, there is no road map indicating any realistic route to a Forbes nomination. To find the way, one has to look elsewhere, as with Peter Pan's magic island:

"It's not on any chart,

You must find it in your heart -

 Never-Never-Land."

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