Working Hard for the Last Laugh

By KURT ANDERSEN

In Washington, humor has become serious business

Ronald Reagan trotted into a sticky situation and made it worse last week when he ad-libbed his quasi-joke about cavemen during a speech to the International Federation of Business and Professional Women. It was an unusual kind of slip-up for Reagan, who uses jokes more often and more successfully than any other President since John Kennedy. He is so adept, in fact, that his Democratic challengers are busy sharpening their own jokes on the hustings. Political humor is no longer a laughing matter.

Why is it now that if you are running for the most powerful job in the world, you must first prove that you can tell a joke? "All candidates look like good guys if they kid around a bit," says Columnist Art Buchwald. Robert Orben, a political gagwriter in Washington, says a sense of humor "is one of the attributes a candidate must have. The good will engendered by humor goes a long way in covering his gaffes." And so Senator John Glenn pokes fun at his lack of pizazz: "Let me say that I am not dull." One, two, three. ''Boring maybe, but not dull."

Determined exploitation of humor by politicians probably started after Adlai Stevenson and then John Kennedy used quips to charm the press and public. "In America," said Stevenson, who lost the presidency twice, "any boy may become President, and I suppose that's just the risk he takes." During the 1960 campaign, Kennedy used a joke to defuse criticism that he was a spoiled rich man's son. His father, Kennedy said, had sent him a telegram: "Don't buy one vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'll pay for a landslide."

Television has made campaign humor essential, since snappy one-liners help win precious time on the evening news. "Humor works," says Columnist Mark Shields, who sometimes gives jokes to Democrats. "It says, 'I'm not pompous. I'm not pretentious. I'm one of you.' "

Many politicians are natural performers (Glenn is a notable exception), as hungry for audience approval as any Las Vegas comic. "It's a very heady experience when you get people to laugh," says Buchwald. Reagan, of course, spent most of his life performing. There is a humor specialist among the six White House speechwriters, but Reagan is apt to crack his own jokes spontaneously, as he did with mixed success last week.

"Before an appearance," says Landon Parvin, the President's top jokewriter, "we'll put together three to six pages of one-liners. We rely mostly on self-deprecatory humor." Reagan and his writers rely especially on jokes about his age, a potentially serious liability. Speaking to the Washington Press Club, Reagan mentioned its founding in 1919, and added, "It seems like only yesterday." Last week in a speech in Atlanta, there he went again: "I share with you the honor of this special occasion, the 105th annual meeting of the great American Bar Association." A presidential pause. "It isn't true that I attended the first meeting."

Outside the Oval Office, the funniest Republicans are in the Senate, Robert Dole of Kansas ("I don't want to say Howard Baker is short, but last week I saw him playing handball against the curb") and Wyoming's Alan Simpson. Among the Democratic presidential contenders, South Carolina's Fritz Hollings is considered the wittiest.

The others need all the help they can get. At last spring's annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, Glenn was one of the main speakers, and he surely would have bombed if not for the work of a volunteer humor commando team: Buchwald, Shields, veteran Democratic Political Manager Frank Mankiewicz and CBS News Consultant Richard Drayne. Glenn was a hit. He pretended to praise Walter Mondale for not being "afraid to be sharply critical of the President's policies. Fortunately," Glenn added, "President Carter hasn't taken it personally."

In June, before Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy emceed a fund-raising "roast" of Arizona Congressman Morris Udall--who is renowned as a Washington wit--Kennedy's press secretary, Robert Shrum, asked Drayne and Mankiewicz for some gags. They helped Kennedy steal the show from the five Democratic hopefuls on the dais. Kennedy poked fun at Rollings' heavy Southern accent ("the only non-English-speaking candidate ever to run for President"). And he flicked a good jab at the easiest mark in town, urging that Interior Secretary James Watt be thrown to the wolves "while there are still some wolves left."

Most politicians' humor, however, tends to be safe rather than biting. Dole's thrust-and-cut jokes in 1976, when he was the G.O.P. vice-presidential nominee, were said to have alienated voters. Several realms are off-limits: ethnic and racial jokes, anything remotely smutty. While Reagan can repeat punch lines about his age, it would be unseemly for a Democrat to joke about the President's advanced years. Topicality is crucial. For instance, Rollings' allusion to Carter's seven-year-old, lust-in-my-heart Playboy interview (Hollings: "I'm lusting for the nomination") does not quite work. "There are no eternal political jokes," says Mankiewicz. He crafted one of the more enduring, however, in 1968 for Robert Kennedy: "I'm not really interested in the presidency, and neither is my wife Ethel-Bird."

A few outsiders contribute jokes--the White House solicits from Bob Hope's stable, and Tonight Show Writer Ray Siller feeds gags to Vice President George Bush--but inoffensive insiders seem to have the real knack. "Some Hollywood gagwriters are good with political humor," says Shrum, "but most are not. The people here know the limits."

A few of the court jesters believe jokes are being overused. "I think it's a mistake for [Reagan] to use humor as much as he does," says Orben, who worked full time for Gerald Ford. "Humor is great, but people now want solutions." Yet they also like to laugh. "Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself," E.B. White wrote, "he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor." So why shouldn't the Commander in Chief have one too? Says Drayne: "Presidents without a sense of humor make me nervous.''

--By Kurt Andersen.

Reported by Hays Corey/Washington

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