B Y J A M E S C A R V I L L E
The Show on the Road One more reason why Dole in our continuing series on why the President is steamrolling along to victory, we turn to the subject of proper staging of campaign events. Modern presidential campaigns need to be able to keep their travel schedules loose and flexible until the last possible moment, to respond to the latest polls or to try to outmaneuver their opponent in a battleground state. In most cases, a candidate's advance team gets only about four days notice before they have to put together a day's worth of events in any given city. To put things in perspective, that's four days — and sometimes less — to put together the equivalent of a huge, nationally televised wedding. Usually there are only a half-dozen people to make all the arrangements. And those arrangements can be a logistical nightmare. Advance teams have to find a site, line up a speaking program, invite special guests, build a crowd, hook up a sound system, print banners, set up press facilities, and coordinate law-enforcement help. By necessity, it's a quick and dirty operation, and mistakes are unavoidable. Of course, some mistakes are more avoidable than others. Here are a couple of classic examples. At a campaign event in Florida not too long ago, Dole's advance team found a great site for the candidate. It was a picture-perfect waterfront scene, ideal for an above-the-fold photo in the local papers. There was one problem, however. Off to the side, within the camera's gaze, a dozen or more women in tight shirts and skimpy skirts peered down on the scene from the balcony of a restaurant. Somehow, Dole's advance team had missed the fact that they had picked a site next door to a Hooters franchise. The Dole campaign also has a knack for playing ridiculously inappropriate music. A piece of free advice: When your candidate is trying to convince voters he's got a realistic shot at winning the election, you're better off not playing the theme song from "Mission: Impossible." Dole's advance team also is having timing problems. Lately, they've been popping off confetti cannons before their candidate is done with his remarks. And I'm not one to criticize bad spelling, but if you look at all the typos that get printed on their balloons and banners — like "Oho" in place of "Ohio" — you might think Dan Quayle was the guy in charge. Democrats are by no means immune to embarrassment. Last year, when Al Gore visited Nashville for the annual family conference he sponsors, an advance man hooked up the VP with a lavalier microphone well before the event was to begin. The advance man assured the VP that the mike would not be turned on until he went up on stage. Tragically, he was wrong. The VP went to the bathroom and more than 200 people in the audience heard him unzip his zipper and relieve himself at a urinal. As you might imagine, the advance guy thought his career was over. But when he informed the VP of his screw-up, the VP just laughed. Sometimes campaigns don't leave it up to their opponents to screw up on their own. Here's a doozy from 1992, one I had nothing to do with, I assure you. It seems a few advance guys from our campaign succeeded in sneaking into a Bush rally in Columbia, Missouri by showing that they were carrying a big banner that said, "WELCOME, MR. PRESIDENT." But they didn't show the whole banner. When fully unfurled, the banner said, "WELCOME, MR. PRESIDENT TO BISMARCK". Seems pretty innocuous, except that the sign was held up right in the center of the crowd and it forced Bush to say to the good citizens of Columbia, "It's great to be here in Bismarck." The crowd groaned. Bush fell for that same prank in five cities before the Clinton pranksters were flushed out. As for Dole, you have to ask why his campaign has been so prone to belly-flops. First of all, there's trickle-down ineptitude. When Bob Dole and his running mate can't even coordinate their message with one another, it's hard for the advance folks on the ground to know what is expected. Second, these people are exhausted and dispirited. I may not be able to sympathize with them, but I can definitely empathize. And finally, many of their advance people are very green. The experienced advance people for Reagan and Bush, some of whom were legendary, have gone on to other things. The President's team has relatively inexperienced people, too. But the core of the team has had a chance to practice its work over the past four years. Proper advance work and effectively staged road events won't be the reason why Clinton wins. But they're just one more sign that the Dole campaign didn't give their candidate a fighting chance. Has this been the worst Republican campaign in memory? Chew it over in Table Talk.
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