Cash money record turk

ALMOST ANYONE CAN PLAY-AND WIN

Disillusioned with their party's presidential candidate crop, a group of Southern Democratic leaders gathered last fall to see if they could steer the nomination to a more stature-esque candidate--Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, say, or New York Governor Mario Cuomo. After four fitful meetings, the dozen or so heavyweights gave up. As North Carolina's Senator Terry Sanford put it: "There isn't a thing we can do to promote anybody or put in the fix for anybody. The so-called people of influence in Washington have damn little control over this irrational process."

In governing and in electoral politics, the forces loosed in the Aquarian Age of the 1960s have created the Disestablishmentarian Age of the 1980s. The political elite, succored by Old Boy networks, controlled by hierarchical political parties, propped up by a rigid congressional seniority system and sustained by singularly large sources of money, have been overwhelmed in a freewheeling environment where anybody with ideas and access to the media can play--and win. State primaries and caucuses have sapped power from party bosses. And the old saw that "he who decides what politics is about runs the country" has become meaningless: Politics is now about nearly everything. That is why Washington has exploded with lobbyists and journalists, and why federal and congressional bureaucracies have grown like kudzu.

When it comes to defining what government should do and who should do it, control has passed from a relatively small and closed cadre of people with the right connections to a far larger group of those with the right stuff as mass persuaders, intellectual energizers and grass-roots organizers. "Politics has become a marketing game of ideas where those who catch the attention of the right patron--like a congressman, senator, cabinet official or even an op-ed-page editor--can prevail," says Kirk O'Donnell, director of the Center for National Policy.

In electioneering, political leaders who once picked candidates and ran their campaigns have been supplanted by a troika of experts: Polltakers, media specialists and high-tech fund-raisers who fuel the candidate with the vast sums from small donors and political-action committees--and who often play key roles in shaping strategy. Both major parties first adapted to these changes by contracting with outside experts. Yet more and more, party leaders have developed in-house expertise.

At the national level, television has revolutionized campaigning, and journalists--both print and video--have largely taken over the gatekeeper role that used to belong to political leaders. Recently, a backlash against that media power has been building: Last week, after Dan Rather's contentious "interview" with Vice President George Bush, switchboards at CBS headquarters and affiliates lit up with angry complaints from voters about Rather's behavior. Nevertheless, the media now determine--far more than any other powers--which political ideas are "in play" and which candidates are "viable." And both candidates for office and elected officials can, in effect, go over the heads of party leaders straight to the cameras--and thus to the people.

Not surprising, the dispersion of political power has coincided with a period of paralysis in Washington and a transfer of considerable power back to the states, where a new political elite is beginning to emerge. And the salutary fact is this: The sweeping changes of the last 30 years have guaranteed that many more voters and many more of their representatives in Congress have power to pass judgment in the ballot booth and in legislative corridors on whether the New Establishment is making the right decisions.

PACKAGING

IMAGES

If George Bush ever totally licks the "wimp factor," he'll have Roger Ailes to thank. A media consultant and former producer of "The Mike Douglas Show," Ailes produces the Vice President's television commercials--and also advises him on such details as the timbre of his voice, how to sit and when to smile during those all-important unpaid media moments. You can bet he had words of advice before Bush faced off with Dan Rather last week. And it was Ailes who told the Veep to call Pete du Pont "Pierre" during October's debate in Houston. "It was a signal. It said 'Don't keep screwing around with George Bush.'"

Ailes is the man behind the curtain, and as TV has grown in influence, he and colleagues like Democratic consultant Bob Squier have become more important to campaigns than ever before. They can literally save elections. In 1986, as the U.S. Senate race was coming to a close in Kentucky, Ailes's client, a county judge from Louisville named Mitch McConnell, was down in the polls by 44 points. McConnell's consultants told him it was over: No one had ever made up that many points in so few weeks. Then Ailes, with nothing to lose, produced a commercial featuring a hound dog chasing a look-alike of the incumbent through the Kentucky hills, while a voice enumerated the most damaging items in his voting record. Mitch McConnell, a dead-in-the-water Republican in a 4-to-1 Democratic state, won the election. "You can't tell me that isn't power," says polltaker Lance Tarrance, who worked with Ailes on the campaign.

Ailes's first political client was Richard Nixon, for whom he invented the "Man in the Arena" series in 1968. Nixon stood, live, with no podium and no notes while people lobbed questions at him. A risk, yes. But, says Ailes, "After 3,000 hours of television and working with everybody from Henny Youngman to Edward Teller, you have instincts. And the thing I knew about Nixon was that you were never going to make him warm and fuzzy, but he could handle that kind of tough situation."

Ailes insists that his business is not as sinister as it sometimes seems to outsiders. Image-makers, after all, cannot alter the raw material they work with; they can only polish it. "My job is to present the best reality. We ignore the bad points and present the good." But the reality cannot always be prepackaged in this era of constant media attention. "Your guy is a surfer. The media are either with you or against you and you've got to catch the wave."

A CHILD OF

REVOLUTION

When looking for power in Washington, in the immortal words of Deep Throat, you follow the money. And since 1985, when he became chairman of the House Budget Committee, Democrat Bill Gray of Pennsylvania has had more responsibility than virtually any other American for the way nearly $3 trillion in federal cash has been spent. After outdueling President Reagan mano a mano in three legislative budget battles, Gray is one of the most successful Democrats of the 1980s. "If there wasn't a Bill Gray, we would have had to invent him," says Democratic Whip Tony Coelho.

Gray, 46, is the child of two revolutions--the civil-rights revolution of the 1960s and the congressional Young Turk revolt of the 1970s. He has carefully parlayed his limited seniority and the more democratic rules of Congress into a tremendously powerful post. While the tax-writing committees in the House and Senate still raise the money, and the appropriations committees still spend it, the key decisions about how much to raise and how much to spend are made by the Budget Committee.

A Baptist preacher--whose family used to house Martin Luther King, Jr., when he traveled to Philadelphia--Gray has helped rewrite the book on how to exercise and keep congressional power in a new age. "When I was elected chairman, I told my colleagues a kind of parable about the little boy falling in the well who figures out that the only way out is to tie all the ropes together," says Gray. "That's the way I see my job--if you can't tie the ropes together between the conservatives and moderates and liberals of our party, then you can't make a policy."

Gray will have to retire from his chairmanship at the end of this year but hopes to move one rung higher on the leadership ladder by becoming the head of the Democratic Caucus. Ironically, his bid appears in trouble, according to some colleagues, because key members of the Black Caucus and other liberal friends have turned against him, complaining that he is too covetous of being the undisputed black leader on Capitol Hill. That hasn't quelled talk, though, that he will be on the "short list" of candidates for Vice President at the Democratic national convention in Atlanta this summer.