On the Campaign Trail
Shields, Mark
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL Mark Shields/Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill/$5.95, paper Fred Barnes Some of you out there may not know Mark Shields. So let me introduce him. He is a former political...
...Here Mondale could be making a mistake common to Washington where people frequently confuse input (that's hours spent) with output (results obtained)," Shields writes...
...Throughout, Mondale neverappeared to be the sort of strong, decisive leader who could, if necessary, benchpress NATO," he writes...
...On balance, television has made our presidential campaigns more honest and our candidates more accountable," he argues...
...Shields goes further...
...Remember President Udall...
...If a story is 'inside the Beltway,' it has nothing to do with the real world where people know the price of hamburger and Joe Lunchbucket stops after work for a shot and a beer," says Shields...
...The next time somebody approaches you with a report from Sam Donaldson that Reagan has been shut off from the outside world by Patrick J. Buchanan or one from Anthony Lewis that Reagan really supports apartheid in South Africa, just dismiss the thing with, "You take that seriously...
...That's just that inside-the-Beltway stuff...
...Reporters like to be thought of as tough-minded, and they fear having their questions brushed aside by a candidate or his aides as too academic or abstract...
...Sure, they're too liberal for a conservative age...
...And usually they get what they deserve...
...In a terrific column a few years ago (but not included in this book), Shields wrote that Reagan, by being a successful President, was wiping out scores of college seminars on "The Troubled Presidency," "The President: Can He Govern...
...At some point, Democrats will be forced to conclude that as Pogo once put it, 'We have met the enemy and it's us.' " Not that Shields absolves Mondale entirely...
...The Shackles of Power," etc...
...Shields had the job of getting him to the White House...
...Well, for one thing, Shields explains better than anyone else what's wrong with the Democrats...
...After all, was there ever really a chance that Ronald Reagan might lose...
...And while he admires Mondale's performance in the first presidential debate with Reagan last year, Shields says that his comment about liking the President personally "should have made Mondale's nose grow three inches...
...Besides, folks like Reagan's easygoing approach to the presidency...
...And when a campaign aide delivers this judgment, he often does it, Shields notes, "with an air of disappointment that seems to say: 'And all the time I thought you were a tough-minded and realistic pol.'" The effect is withering...
...But the real problem they have, he says, is that they don't think they're doing anything wrong...
...No, but still Shields brings the race to magnificent light...
...Confronted with the bad news that their presidential ticket won only three out of ten white male votes [on election day], they find no fault with their ideas or themselves," Shields writes...
...Instead they exhibit a marked preference for blaming the results on terminal macho-ness in the population, or racial polarization...
...Like Udall, some of his candidates did very poorly...
...Unlike nearly every other political writer around, including me, Shields liked the "morning in America" ads for the Reagan campaign (you know, the ones similar to McDonald's ads...
...Other, longer books will soon appear Fred Barnes is a senior editor at the New Republic...
...he doesn't spend time telling us what a tough, thankless job he has and how lonely and burdensome are the duties of the chief executive...
...I'll say there is...
...Not only might it work, but you might be right...
...to illuminate the campaign, but 1 doubt if they'll be more compelling than Shields's...
...Reagan is probably the best-liked American President in at least twenty years," Shields writes here...
...There is a profound difference...
...No more saying one thing in Michigan and another in Alabama, because "television can expose trimming and position-altering by a candidate far more devastatingly than any other medium.'' Oh, yes...
...Nor should Walter Mondale or his staff or his stiff stump style be tagged as the cause of the 1984 Democratic defeat...
...What's so hot about his book...
...Shields, who writes a column for the Washington Post and commentaries for Mutual Radio and CBS, is the wittiest political analyst around, and he is frequently, the most trenchant, fair-minded, and thoughtful...
...I'm being unfair to Shields, of course...
...All of which explains why his slim (108 pages) volume of commentaries from last year's presidential campaign is so readable and fascinating...
...If you think they are "cash bar" or "I'm sorry, but there's no prepared text-you'll have to take notes," you're close, but wrong...
...The last Shields campaign I recall was the gubernatorial primary in Louisiana in 1979...
...The campaign itself was rather lacking in dramatic tension...
...What are the words that political reporters hate the most...
...A Democrat who gives non-grudging respect to Reagan...
...Shields reveals a few press secrets, too...
...Often the best political work is done by the agents of losing candidates-the TV spots produced by Gerald Rafshoon for Jimmy Carter in 1980, the strategic advice offered Ronald Reagan by John Sears in 1976, and so on...
...Writes Shields: "Such advisers, when they do not wish to discuss a subject, use the ultimate weapon of ridicule to silence the insecure reporter: 'That's an inside-the-Beltway story.'" The beltway here is the one around Washington, and most national political reporters live inside it...
...To watch the spots is to conclude that Ronald Reagan is running for head of the nation that is the United States, while his Democratic rivals, to listen to them, are running for the position of head of the United States government," he writes...
...Candidates who blame their problems on the intellectual or moral shortcomings of the voters deserve defeat...
...Anyway, in Shields's case, political journalism has gained what political campaigning has lost...
...And Mondale missed the boat on the issues he stressed...
...Shields's candidate, Bubba Henry, was the class of the field...
...Democrats have lost four of the last five presidential races "not because the electorate is mean-spirited and vengeful," he says, but because what Democrats stood for wasn't "relevant, believable or practical to a majority of American voters...
...One reason is that Ronald Reagan is a man publicly free of self-pity...
...We all know that...
...As President, Mondale's old boss [Carter], with his eighteen-hour days, gave hard work a bad name...
...Come to think of it, we can all learn something from Shields's revelation...
...Shields also rejects the idea that TV has ruined campaigns...
...He is a former political strategist for Democratic candidates, liberals even...
...As an explanation or excuse, that may be convenient, but it is wrong...
...He kept saying Americans wanted an "engaged" President, not a "detached" one...
...Be thankful...
...C'est la vie...
...He came in fifth...
Vol. 18 • June 1985 • No. 6
