Network Coverage of the Democratic Presidential Candidates

...There was little in the Humphrey model with its corollary themes to discourage the belief that he was indeed "a politician of the past...

...In this sense, they were both used effectively...

...Rather, the network focus was on Humphrey's historic quest for the presidency, his traditional style of party politics, his old friends and old images...

...For television news, the governor's appeal was no longer Southern, but populist and anti-establishment...

...In this sense, television coverage of the Democratic primaries was, for Senator McGovern, very favorable indeed...

...No longer a regional one-issue candidate, he was now an anti-establishment, populist candidate who articulated the political frustration of America's white working class....both Wallace and McGovern had touched, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, a deep vein of restless dissatisfaction within the electorate...

...Because Muskie was characterized in New Hampshire as the embattled frontrunner, he left that primary suffering from the ill-effects of what, in any other context, could only be called a clear victory....Within the thematic framework, the Florida primary was not simply an isolated contest, but rather, the second chapter in the unfolding drama of the beleaguered frontrunner...

...Wallace was also, in Florida at least, the frontrunning candidate, and for television news, the one explained the other....The magnitude of Wallace's Florida victory-a forty-two per cent plurality in a field of eleven candidates-suggested that his voter support represented something far larger than a narrowly-defined regional appeal....It was in the aftermath of the Wisconsin primary that the Wallace transformation was completed in network coverage of his campaign...

...In Florida, it was the minimization of the senator's performance...

...And in this manner, television news introduced a note of uncertainty which invested the frontrunner's campaign with an interest for the viewing audience...

...Shirley Chisholm Because she was a black and a woman, and because she freely admitted (unlike Hartke or Yorty) that she did not expect to reach the presidency, Mrs...

...Because television news viewed that current as a significant political phenomenon to be reckoned with by all of the candidates in the primary season, it also viewed the Wallace campaign as a significant and important political phenomenon...

...Issues and ideologies are minimized...

...And the "image and reality" theme became less an explanation for Lindsay's unsuccessful ventures into the Democratic primaries than in indictment of the candidate as a kind of deceptive political sorcerer who manipulates appearances with the modem hocus-pocus of media image-building...

...On the one hand, network news had emphasized the senator's strength and superiority, readily accepting his early endorsements and lead in the polls as evidence of his front-running position, while, on the other hand, it had noted that the leading candidate was not without weaknesses and had suggested that his frontrunner status was tenuous at best...

...That is, the difficulties of the campaign were attributed by some newsmen to the failure of Humphrey's traditional allies to answer the call of their old friend...

...his campaign assumed a symbolic quality, an instructive value, for network news...

...the candidate's personality, political style and campaign strategy are elevated to positions of primary importance...

...The embattled Humphrey's task, then, was to preserve the traditional coalition from the emerging challenge of Wallace on the one side and McGovern on the other....In California Hubert Humphrey was characterized by network news as the underdog, more so, even, than as the traditionalist politician with traditionalist ways...In so far as "the old order politician" theme figured in television coverage of Humphrey's California campaign, it was used to explain the origins of the senator's weakened position...

...George Wallace George Wallace...seemed to have for television news a clearly-defined image on the eve of the primary season;...The Alabama governor was seen as a regional, one-issue candidate who effectively translated the largely racial fears of white Americans into political support, and who, in appealing to the elemental passions of voters, sowed violence and discord wherever he went....If Wallace was a regional, one-issue candidate, then Florida was his region and busing was his issue...

...George McGovern The first important theme that appeared in television coverage of his campaign was that of the underdog in New Hampshire....the scene of the persistent underdog battling from behind to challenge the longtime frontrunner was described with an appropriately dramatic language....McGovern's "upsurge" was measured largely against his lowly position in the early polls...

...And it suggested, too, that Humphrey's long political career weighed heavily on his current candidacy-not only the "scars" of Vietnam, Chicago and the loss to Richard Nixon, but also the possibility that he had become too familiar to American voters ....Can Hubert Humphrey realize his lifelong presidential dream by appealing to the past loyalties of his traditional constituencies...

...It emphasized that the senator was still relying on the familiar ways and traditional coalitions of Democratic party politics that had been his style in the past...

...But they did not make for a balanced assessment of the senator's candidacy...

...And in covering his Wisconsin campaign, television news focused on his troubles and difficulties, thus anticipating the final chapter in the fall of the frontrunner...

...Moreover, within the context of the "two George, theme, McGovern reaped the benefits of Wallace's impressive second-place finish...

...James R. Ferguson is a graduate student in history at Indiana University and coauthor of The Alternative's study of television news...

...In Jackson's case, at least, this was unfortunate....So, as characterized by the themes of the network news profiles, then, Henry Jackson was a politician of the old order-traditional and rather colorless in political style, but shrewdly calculating and opportunistic in his pursuit of votes...

...Chisholm was viewed as an atypical politician whose candidacy represented something more fundamental than a mere effort at political self-advancement....While the other candidates' talk of noble ventures and unselfish commitment was usually interpreted as a deceptive cover for the actual sources of their political behavior, Mrs...

...he became symbolic of a social, political and economic disaffection so profound and pervasive that it united hitherto opposing voting groups under the banner of the new populism...

...And if, as network commentators sometimes noted, Hubert Humphrey had made genuine contributions to American politics, it would seem that he deserved better than that...

...In this manner, network coverage of the Muskie campaign in the Democratic primaries became a kind of unfolding drama that focused on one question: can Ed Muskie withstand the challenge of competing candidates and maintain his grasp on the frontrunner's mantle long enough to capture the party nomination?...So television news viewed Muskie's early candidacy with a kind of "let's wait and see" attitude which reflected the two fundamental elements of the frontrunner theme...

...Hubert Humphrey Clearly, then, there was a kind of Humphrey model that operated consistently in network coverage of his campaign, a model that was constructed from the events, the impressions, the images of his long political career, and a model that was modified only slightly to accommodate the developments of 1972....For television news, then, Hubert Humphrey was the veteran political warrior who was returning from his 1968 defeat to make a comeback bid in presidential politics, the aged candidate who was hoping to piece together-for one last, great effort-the familiar coalition that had provided so much of his strength in the past...

...It also provided a framework for describing the senator's campaign in an entertaining, even exciting manner...

...These were the questions posed by the Humphrey model...

...And perhaps, if he had had more favorable news coverage, he would have fared better at the polls...

...many of the themes selected by television news to describe and interpret McGovern's campaign neatly harmonized with his own interpretation of events or his own desired political self-image...

...in Wisconsin, polls showed him surging toward the lead....McGovern's "broadened base of support" explained his surge in Wisconsin's pre-primary polls...

...This was the model of Humphrey the politician that operated consistently in network coverage of his 1972 candidacy, and it determined much of the content of that coverage...

...So, while Muskie had been an anxious frontrunner, and McGovern a surging underdog in New Hampshire, McGovern became, in coverage of the California campaign, a confident, comfortable frontrunner and Hubert Humphrey a desperate underdog....The "new politics versus old politics" theme was occasionally enlisted by television news to support the "frontrunner-underdog" theme...

...It found the drama and the interest of the Humphrey campaign in the Minnesota senator's historic quest for the presidency-the long and dogged pursuit that had become, in 1972, a now-or-never proposition...

...James R. Ferguson: Network Coverage of the Democratic Presidential Candidates Edmund Muskie Senator Edmund Muskie's political situation on the eve of the Democratic primary season was defined by television news as that of the "frontrunning" candidate for the party's presidential nomination....But the frontrunner theme as used by television news did not simply provide a means for defining Muskie's position vis a vis the other Democratic candidates...

...A major theme that emerged in subsequent network coverage of the Muskie campaign was that of "the former front-runner"-the candidate who, after having fallen from his preeminent position, was struggling desperately to regain that position...

...So, the candidate, his constituency, his organization, his strategy, his message-all of this seemed to make for a kind of "new politics," many newsmen suggested...

...He was the man who was leading, but he was also the man who might, at any moment, stumble and fall-the victim of surging rivals, or of his own weaknesses or of both...

...In this sense, then, the game of percentages used by the networks in covering the New Hampshire primary worked to McGovern's advantage...

...In this manner, television news anticipated both a Muskie triumph and a Muskie collapse...

...The most important theme used in television descriptions of the Humphrey campaign-"the traditionalist politician with traditionalist ways"- was derived from it....Clearly, the model defined Humphrey's political situation in the 1972 Democratic primaries very much in terms of his past...

...it also posed a very important question for television news: how had McGovern been able to weld together this coalition of "heretofore contradictory constituencies...

...His issue was not simply busing, but the failure of liberal government to respond to the needs of America's "little man...

...In California, it was the frontrunner moving with increasing, virtually unstoppable momentum toward the party nomination...

...The Wallace transformation in television coverage of his campaign-from "regional, one-issue candidate" to "anti-establishment populist"-clearly worked to the governor's advantage...

...The mayor's slim chances for the nomination provided the point of departure for almost every network report on his campaign activities....Searching for explanations for the candidate's oliappointing primary performance, television news probed the campaign to locate its problems and difficulties, its limitations and failures....the Lindsay of "real-life" was something quite different from the Lindsay of media image...

...Humphrey's own ideological interpretation of events went farther in this direction...

...That is, for most newsmen, the interest of the Wallace campaign was to be found in what it revealed about the moods and political temperament of the American electorate rather than the governor's efforts toward the party nomination...

...In Wisconsin, it was the deep currents of social and political disaffection...

...Had Muskie not been saddled with the largely media-imposed burdens of the frontrunner-had he not, for example, been required to capture fifty per cent of the New Hampshire vote to maintain his "momentum" or do well with the more conservative voters of Florida-he would have most certainly emerged more favorably in television news coverage of the Democratic primaries...

...His perception of national issues, his reasoned argument, his positions and proposals did not much concern television news, however...

...The populist theme was positive, identifying Wallace not with a narrowly-defined constituency of Southern anti-busing voters, but with a deep current of discontent within American society that knew no geographical boundaries and that was confined to no single issue...

...And "MrOnvern and the new politics" became an important theme....Because McGovern's dramatic ascent was, according to the polls at least, continuing in California, television news centered attention on his emerging strengths, his accelerating momentum...

...In this light, he became not so much a candidate for the presidency as a "messenger of discontent," a "symbol of protest," ...in all of Wallace's post-Wisconsin primaries, then, the network focus was on the anti-establishment and populist content of his campaign...

...While network news emphasized Muskie's early superiority, it also probed his campaign for signs of eroding strength, reminded viewers that his eventual triumph was not a certainty and, in the case of New Hampshire provided a formidable opponent (in the frontrun-ner's "needed" margin of victory) when none could be found among the candidates themselves...

...A note of dramatic urgency was introduced by "the former frontrunner" theme, for now, it was not simply Muskie's frontrunner status that was endangered, but his very candidacy...

...If Wallace, the "right-wing populist," had been linked with the center and right-of-center candidates in Wisconsin (Humphrey, Muskie and Jackson), the sixty per cent vote total would have minimized McGovern's showing considerably...

...For many newsmen, the answer was to be found in his populist appeal, his anti-establishment stance which fully expressed the discontent of many American voters with "the way things are...

...Henry Jackson The campaign for voter support-perhaps the most superficial expression of democratic politics-is precisely what captures the eye of the television camera...

...Chisholm's self-characterizations and statements of purpose were accepted unquestioningly for the most part by television news....while Mrs...

...In this regard, television news fully developed the dramatic situation of the frontrunning candidate...

...In New Hampshire, it was the surging underdog and the percentage interpretation of the primary results...

...daining the traditional party apparatus, he was appealing to-and working through-the people....Like George Wallace, he was appealing to the common man to express his discontent with "the way things are...

...Chisholm was, like Vance Hartke and Sam Yorty, a presidential impossibility, she seemed heroic rather than comic in defying the odds against her...

...McGovern, newsmen said, was making significant inroads in Humphrey's traditional constituencies...

...John Lindsay Lindsay, perhaps more than any other candidate, was victimized by the thematic content of television news reports on his candidacy...

...McGovern's growing voter appeal, it seemed, was eroding the strength of the old coalition....The underdog theme and the traditional politician theme were used by television news to heighten the dramatic effect of Hubert Humphrey's campaign in the 1972 Democratic primaries...

...Or will his old friends fail him in this one last effort, thinking him to be more a politician of the past than of the present...

...They defined his essential task, his dramatic situation, his political image, all of which remained constant as network news charted the fortunes of Hubert Humphrey in the Democratic primary season...

...The populist theme seems particularly favorable when compared with a major theme used by television news in covering the governor's 1968 presidential campaign-"Wallace, the sower of violence and discord...

...Can Ed Muskie "make genuine this bandwagon atmosphere" by scoring some impressive primary victories?...So, while Muskie's unchallenged position in New Hampshire precluded the drama of several candidates contending for victory, it also made possible the drama of the frontrunner struggling to maintain his commanding lead....it does serve to illustrate by contrast the degree to which a theme may shape and control the content of network news stories...