Does Small Town Experience Matter?
My career in broadcasting began at a radio station in a very small town. It was so soon after the end of World War II that the broadcast equipment manufacturers had not yet developed the slick gear that eventually became the norm in the broadcasting industry.
That is my way of explaining that our station had no recording equipment for recording commercials. No tape recorder. No disk recorder. All commercials were read live. In fact, many of them were not "read" at all. In my first week or so on the job, our continuity writer came into the control room, handed me a proof sheet of a grocery store ad that would appear in that week's edition of the local weekly newspaper and said, "Ad-lib a commercial for this store."
There were only two grocery stores in our town, and it evolved that every week I had to ad-lib a commercial for the grocery store where I shopped. Talk about instant feedback! When I finished my shift at the station and headed home, I stopped at the store for whatever food items I needed. The grocer pulled me aside and quickly explained the correct terminology for something I had mischaracterized in his ad-libbed commercial. Most housewives can read newspaper grocery ad shorthand. As a 20-year-old bachelor, I was treading foreign soil.
Once I ad-libbed a commercial for Dairy Queen and literally drooled over ice cream goodies. I hardly cleared the station premises when I was accosted by a dairy man telling me in no uncertain terms that Dairy Queen treats are NOT ice cream!
The thing about small town life is that you are never insulated from your critics. How about being stopped on the street by an indignant matron who demanded that I learn the difference between a fryer and a broiler. Once I spoke of seeing "your doctor or your dentist" and caught a burning critique from my dentist who explained that a dentist is also a doctor. I shall never forget to say "your physician or dentist."
Another time I played a record by Arthur Godfrey who, in his usual comedy mode, had butchered the English language. I made fun of Godfrey. The next day I received a card from a local high school English teacher listing every instance of my own bad grammar that day.
Small town experience is the best possible training ground. It means little on your resumé. What counts today is the name of the school you attended. There, in all probability your class was taught by an instructor teaching a textbook written by some "expert" who learned their craft from textbooks written by earlier "experts".
In the small town, whether it is broadcasting, police work, politics or most any other endeavor, you experience immediate results of your actions. You may well forget an admonition from a boring professor, but you will not soon forget that confrontation with an angry neighbor.
So, when a news reporter today makes light of the experience of Sarah Palin as mayor of a small town, I have to smile as I imagine all the hard lessons that job surely hammered into her brain!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Too old? Says who?
I keep hearing complaints that John McCain is too old. Interesting, isn't it, that people think others are too old only if they, themselves, are not as old as the one they are discussing.
When they talk about someone being too old, they seem to be saying the older person is not smart. In my opiniion, it is usually the younger ones who are not as smart.
How about you. Is your age:
25? Are you smarter than you were at 15?
35? Are you smarter than you were at 20?
50? Are you smarter than you were at 35?
It is a fact that people get a little smarter each year, because they endure more learning experiences each year. Let's talk about political awareness.
I was just a kid when FDR was elected in 1932. And 1936. And 1940. And 1944. But I well remember the WPA, the NIRA, the NYA, the CCC and his whole alphabet soup of failed New Deal attempts to end the depression, while my father was raising five kids on a salary of $25 a week.
Roosevelt did not survive his fourth term and when he died, Harry Truman inherited the presidency. In 1948, Truman ran for election on his own. I lived in Missouri at that time, not far from Truman's Independence home, but I was not a supporter of Harry. He had been too close to Tom Pendergast, the political boss in Kansas City.
Anyway, I could not vote in 1948. I was a veteran of service with the U.S. Army Forces Western Pacific, but I was not yet 21 years old. Independent candidate Henry Wallace scared me in that election. I wasn't crazy about Thomas Dewey, described that year as like "the little man on top of the wedding cake". So, I probably would have voted for Truman if I could have. Then, Truman chickened out and would not let General MacArthur win the Korean War - a mistake still haunting us today.
In 1952 I liked Ike and my first vote was for him. Eisenhower ended the fighting in Korea but did not really end the war. Another lingering problem. He did initiate the Interstate Highway System, and did give us fiscal responsibility during those wonderfully gentle 1950s.
In 1960 it was Camelot. I didn't vote for Kennedy and he did not finish his first term. But in the nearly three years he was president, he accomplished very little, so I never regretted not voting for him.
Lyndon Johnson inherited the presidency in November, 1963 and ran on his own in 1964. At that time I was fulfilling a personal dream, building my own radio station in a small Kansas town whose economy was tied to a U.S. Air Force base. I felt sorry for Johnson, having become president through tragedy, and voted for him. Promptly upon being elected, Johnson closed our Air Force base, shattering my dream and wiping out what little fortune I had amassed. So much for sympathy voting.
In 1968 and again in 1972 it was Nixon. Nixon was a foreign policy expert and courageous to boot. While Vice President, he once stopped his motorcade in Argentina and jumped out of his car to personally confront a group protesting his visit. But Nixon let himself become embroiled in a stupid mistake by his reelection campaign and had to resign.
Gerald Ford became president, and pardoned Nixon. For that the press hated him and helped sweep Jimmy Carter into office in 1976. Campaigning, Carter decried what he called the "Misery Index" - the combination of high inflation and high unemploymennt. Both skyrocketed after he was elected. He facilitated the ouster of the Shah of Iran and helped bring the Ayatollah Khomeini to power. When Khomeini's radicals invaded the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, a clear act of aggression, Carter trembled in the White House. The only thing good about the Carter presidency was that it ended at the end of one term.
Then there was Reagan. Ronnie restored pride in America, and ended the Cold War, but when terrorists attacked a U.S. Marine base in Lebanon, killing over 200 Marines and injuring scores more, Reagan cut and run.
In 1988, Reagan's Vice President. George H.W. Bush was elected president. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Bush 41 launched the "First Gulf War", won it in six days and became very popular. But in 1992, a clever campaign staff for Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton convinced America that "It's The Economy, Stupid!", and Bush lost his reelection bid.
You can take it from there, but what of those earlier elections. What did you learn from them?
What? You didn't learn anything because you were not yet born? Uh... neither was Barack Obama!
Maybe that old guy is the better choice!
I keep hearing complaints that John McCain is too old. Interesting, isn't it, that people think others are too old only if they, themselves, are not as old as the one they are discussing.
When they talk about someone being too old, they seem to be saying the older person is not smart. In my opiniion, it is usually the younger ones who are not as smart.
How about you. Is your age:
25? Are you smarter than you were at 15?
35? Are you smarter than you were at 20?
50? Are you smarter than you were at 35?
It is a fact that people get a little smarter each year, because they endure more learning experiences each year. Let's talk about political awareness.
I was just a kid when FDR was elected in 1932. And 1936. And 1940. And 1944. But I well remember the WPA, the NIRA, the NYA, the CCC and his whole alphabet soup of failed New Deal attempts to end the depression, while my father was raising five kids on a salary of $25 a week.
Roosevelt did not survive his fourth term and when he died, Harry Truman inherited the presidency. In 1948, Truman ran for election on his own. I lived in Missouri at that time, not far from Truman's Independence home, but I was not a supporter of Harry. He had been too close to Tom Pendergast, the political boss in Kansas City.
Anyway, I could not vote in 1948. I was a veteran of service with the U.S. Army Forces Western Pacific, but I was not yet 21 years old. Independent candidate Henry Wallace scared me in that election. I wasn't crazy about Thomas Dewey, described that year as like "the little man on top of the wedding cake". So, I probably would have voted for Truman if I could have. Then, Truman chickened out and would not let General MacArthur win the Korean War - a mistake still haunting us today.
In 1952 I liked Ike and my first vote was for him. Eisenhower ended the fighting in Korea but did not really end the war. Another lingering problem. He did initiate the Interstate Highway System, and did give us fiscal responsibility during those wonderfully gentle 1950s.
In 1960 it was Camelot. I didn't vote for Kennedy and he did not finish his first term. But in the nearly three years he was president, he accomplished very little, so I never regretted not voting for him.
Lyndon Johnson inherited the presidency in November, 1963 and ran on his own in 1964. At that time I was fulfilling a personal dream, building my own radio station in a small Kansas town whose economy was tied to a U.S. Air Force base. I felt sorry for Johnson, having become president through tragedy, and voted for him. Promptly upon being elected, Johnson closed our Air Force base, shattering my dream and wiping out what little fortune I had amassed. So much for sympathy voting.
In 1968 and again in 1972 it was Nixon. Nixon was a foreign policy expert and courageous to boot. While Vice President, he once stopped his motorcade in Argentina and jumped out of his car to personally confront a group protesting his visit. But Nixon let himself become embroiled in a stupid mistake by his reelection campaign and had to resign.
Gerald Ford became president, and pardoned Nixon. For that the press hated him and helped sweep Jimmy Carter into office in 1976. Campaigning, Carter decried what he called the "Misery Index" - the combination of high inflation and high unemploymennt. Both skyrocketed after he was elected. He facilitated the ouster of the Shah of Iran and helped bring the Ayatollah Khomeini to power. When Khomeini's radicals invaded the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, a clear act of aggression, Carter trembled in the White House. The only thing good about the Carter presidency was that it ended at the end of one term.
Then there was Reagan. Ronnie restored pride in America, and ended the Cold War, but when terrorists attacked a U.S. Marine base in Lebanon, killing over 200 Marines and injuring scores more, Reagan cut and run.
In 1988, Reagan's Vice President. George H.W. Bush was elected president. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Bush 41 launched the "First Gulf War", won it in six days and became very popular. But in 1992, a clever campaign staff for Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton convinced America that "It's The Economy, Stupid!", and Bush lost his reelection bid.
You can take it from there, but what of those earlier elections. What did you learn from them?
What? You didn't learn anything because you were not yet born? Uh... neither was Barack Obama!
Maybe that old guy is the better choice!
Monday, August 25, 2008
Negative Political Ads. Again.
How does anyone determine that negative political ads work? (Other than using them and measuring the results?) Researchers do things like showing test subjects a mixed bag of photos. Pictures of all sorts of things, happy, sad, neutral, horrible, beautiful, ugly, etc. Then they show them a second set of pictures and ask them to press a button every time the second set includes a picture from the first set. The worse the picture, the more likely it is to be remembered. We remember bad stuff.
Okay. If you once saw a snake in the weeds, you would likely be more careful about walking through those weeds in the future. You may also have seen some very pretty wildflowers in those weeds. Next time, you will note the flowers, but you will really be thinking about the snakes. Reasonable.
But there is another reason why negative political ads work. If you have no clue as to the meaning of real issues... if things like socialized medical care, redistribution of wealth, etc., are over your head, too inconvenient to understand, you just ignore those issues. You dismiss them. Who wants to talk about a subject when your ignorance of the subject is likely to be quickly exposed?
How, then, do you make your decisions in the voting booth? You remember the things that are easy to grasp, things you can readily argue for or against. The ways in which you perceive a candidate to be different from you. The ways in which you seem to admire a candidate. He goes to a different - or the same - church. You like the way he talks - or looks. The candidate's age or gender. The ring of the candidate's name. Their place of birth... is he a southerner? A cowboy? An urban elite?
When a candidate talks about their opponent, they repeatedly stress things that are likely to be remembered unfavorably. They stamp those pictures into voter's minds. Campaigns note how these tactics have worked in their campaign, and in campaigns past.
Negative political ads work because of the dumbing down of America. The more frequent and more negative the ads, the dumber America has become.
Here's a challenge. Next time you think a candidate looks or sounds good, or bad. Next time you think about a candidate's religion - or region, stop and ask yourself one question about how the candidate stands on any important issue. Or, even on an unimportant issue.
How does anyone determine that negative political ads work? (Other than using them and measuring the results?) Researchers do things like showing test subjects a mixed bag of photos. Pictures of all sorts of things, happy, sad, neutral, horrible, beautiful, ugly, etc. Then they show them a second set of pictures and ask them to press a button every time the second set includes a picture from the first set. The worse the picture, the more likely it is to be remembered. We remember bad stuff.
Okay. If you once saw a snake in the weeds, you would likely be more careful about walking through those weeds in the future. You may also have seen some very pretty wildflowers in those weeds. Next time, you will note the flowers, but you will really be thinking about the snakes. Reasonable.
But there is another reason why negative political ads work. If you have no clue as to the meaning of real issues... if things like socialized medical care, redistribution of wealth, etc., are over your head, too inconvenient to understand, you just ignore those issues. You dismiss them. Who wants to talk about a subject when your ignorance of the subject is likely to be quickly exposed?
How, then, do you make your decisions in the voting booth? You remember the things that are easy to grasp, things you can readily argue for or against. The ways in which you perceive a candidate to be different from you. The ways in which you seem to admire a candidate. He goes to a different - or the same - church. You like the way he talks - or looks. The candidate's age or gender. The ring of the candidate's name. Their place of birth... is he a southerner? A cowboy? An urban elite?
When a candidate talks about their opponent, they repeatedly stress things that are likely to be remembered unfavorably. They stamp those pictures into voter's minds. Campaigns note how these tactics have worked in their campaign, and in campaigns past.
Negative political ads work because of the dumbing down of America. The more frequent and more negative the ads, the dumber America has become.
Here's a challenge. Next time you think a candidate looks or sounds good, or bad. Next time you think about a candidate's religion - or region, stop and ask yourself one question about how the candidate stands on any important issue. Or, even on an unimportant issue.
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