Word: democratics
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Electronic gadgetry is turning campaign operations into models of efficiency. The staff of Illinois Democrat Paul Simon, for example, distributes the candidate's daily schedules to reporters not by messenger but by facsimile machine, which can transmit a typewritten page over telephone lines in 30 seconds or less. The personal assistants of Tennessee Democrat Albert Gore and Missouri Democrat Richard Gephardt are never far from their laptop computers, which they plug into telephone jacks at least once a day to exchange missives with far-flung operatives or to read the latest word from their Washington offices. When a blizzard last...
...focus group are issued hand- operated dials on which to register their approval or disapproval, on a scale of 1 to 7, of whatever they are viewing on a TV screen. A computer combines the results and displays them instantaneously to the survey takers. EAR tests conducted during several Democratic debates last summer suggested that Arizona Democrat Bruce Babbitt was not coming across well on TV. Babbitt's staff reviewed the videotapes and ordered special coaching to sharpen the candidate's delivery...
...able to win over key swing votes in White House arm-twisting sessions. Last week, however, many undecided Congressmen refused even to meet with the President. "I told him I'm going to make this decision in the quietness of my own thought processes," said Wes Watkins, an Oklahoma Democrat. "I've got a 17- year-old son," Watkins told Reagan during a tense phone call. "I want him to know what we stand for as a country and that we don't believe in carrying on covert and illegal activities." Watkins ultimately voted for the package...
...address on the eve of the vote. Network executives said there was no news in Reagan's 20- minute plea, and in fact, the speech was full of familiar hyperbolic rhetoric: "Nicaragua is being transformed into a beachhead for aggression against the U.S." In a follow-up address, Indiana Democrat Lee Hamilton offered the prevailing House view. The U.S., he said, should wait and see if Nicaragua sticks with the peace process set in motion by last summer before restoring military aid to the contras. "Now is the time to put the Sandinistas to the test," Hamilton said...
...this the Administration has only itself to blame. In seven years, Ronald Reagan has failed to articulate a coherent policy toward the Sandinistas, while his Government's actions have covered the range from amateurism to outright duplicity. Says New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, a Democrat who once supported contra aid: "There is a difference between speeches that rail at Communists and a policy that effectively counters them. Speeches are easy. Policy takes effort and care...