The Media Mesmerists

Rival experts tell how to win votes

In the fiercely contested New York Governor's race, it's Garth vs. Deardourff. In the clamorous gubernatorial election in Ohio, it's also Garth vs. Deardourff. Even in December's presidential election in Venezuela, it's Garth vs. Deardourff. David Garth and John Deardourff are this year's top media mesmerists, the wizards who tell candidates how to project a winning image.

Garth, 48, is a stocky, cigar-waving New Yorker who wages his campaigns like a war. He barks over the phone, at reporters and candidates alike, so gruffly that he has been nicknamed Garth Vader. He once did graduate studies in psychology, then produced televised sports shows until his passion for politics drew him into John Lindsay's successful 1965 campaign for mayor of New York. He claims since then to have "won" 68 of 83 races, mostly for liberal Democrats. "All but twelve," he adds with characteristic immodesty, "were underdogs." This year, Garth says, he was approached to handle major races in 39 states, and selected six.

The most important, from his own viewpoint, is the New York Governor's race, in which he is trying to re-elect his friend Hugh Carey. Says Garth: "In my home state, I get very personally involved --and I hate to lose." His customary strategy is to demand that his candidates raise a lot of money, trim down to fighting weight, learn to concentrate on key issues, and leave the details to him.

Garth's ads are crisp, no-nonsense video-taped messages filled with facts. One for Carey shows the Governor staring directly into a camera and reciting the details of how he cut taxes. More facts are crammed in by a written "crawl" on the bottom of the screen. Garth believes in the power of the tube and worries little about block captains and doorbell-ringing.

Among Garth's other candidates is a sentimental favorite, Senator Jennings Randolph, 76, a Democrat from West Virginia, who first served in Congress 46 years ago and has never felt any need to use this newfangled television. This year he is in a tight fight against former Governor Arch Moore, so Garth was called in. Result: half of Randolph's $500,000 campaign chest will be used on television. One spot shows Randolph preaching fervently to a cluster of coal miners about his long struggle to get them adequate health benefits. He comes across as jolly, energetic and statesmanlike--and much younger than his age.

While Garth was helping with Lindsay's television in 1965, Deardourff joined the campaign staff to do research on issues. Deardourff, 45, is now in partnership with another TV whiz, Douglas Bailey, mostly handling moderate Republicans. He and Bailey were Gerald Ford's media experts, and though their candidate lost, they ran effective TV ads. Deardourff is as cool and managerial as Garth is gruff and feisty.

Deardourff s TV ads for Carey's Republican challenger, Perry Duryea, concentrate more on image-making than on a detailed discussion of issues. To popularize the rather little-known state legislator as "a living, breathing being," Deardourff filmed him riding in one of his lobster boats, piloting his plane and speaking on the floor of the state assembly. Other ads present a relaxed Duryea in the study of his home in Montauk, Long Island, talking about crime, taxes, inflation and education.

Deardourff and Partner Bailey are all over the Midwest, touting Republicans as the champions of tax cuts. Two years ago, they helped elect Jim Thompson Governor of Illinois by stressing his fights against corruption; this year every commercial begins with a discussion of taxes. In Iowa, their spots show Governor Robert Ray on the hustings--talking about taxes. In Ohio, where they are facing a Garth-directed challenge from Richard Celeste, their ads stress incumbent Governor Jim Rhodes' tax-saving administrative abilities and show that he is capable of, among other things, leading the All-Ohio Youth Marching Band. And in Michigan, they have taken on the task of electing an entire Republican legislature; one spot shows a herd of zebras and ostriches racing for cover while the narrator accuses Democrats of running from the tax issue.

Garth and Deardourff, who both have staffs of more than a dozen and earn upward of $200,000 a year, are not the only stars of the image game. In Florida, for example, Media Expert Robert Squier brought Robert Graham out of obscurity to win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. His commercials showed Graham, a millionaire landowner and Harvard Law School graduate, getting his hands dirty alongside the working men at 100 different jobs around the state. In Alabama, Fob James, a millionaire sporting-goods magnate, used Memphis Media Consultant Deloss Walker plus $1 million to convince voters through television that he was the fresh face needed to succeed George Wallace. In California, Ken Rietz, a former head of Young Voters for President Nixon, is helping Republican Evelle Younger spend $1.75 million in television money in his final blitz to unseat Governor Jerry Brown.

But Garth and Deardourff best typify this frenetic business. Deardourff spent one recent week racing to Florida for an anti-casino campaign; then to Venezuela for the presidential race, where he is opposed not only by Garth but also by the legendary Joe Napolitan, onetime seer for Hubert Humphrey; then to Detroit, where he is handling the re-election campaign of Governor William Milliken; then to Ohio to write some TV spots for Governor Rhodes; then to Pennsylvania for a conference with Gubernatorial Candidate Richard Thornburgh. Says Deardourff: "You either win or you lose, and people who lose fall by the wayside."

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