Minding Their Q's and A's

By Richard Zoglin

WHO: BILL CLINTON, ROSS PEROT, GEORGE BUSH

WHERE: ALL OVER THE DIAL

THE BOTTOM LINE: Never mind the issues; TV forums provide valuable glimpses of the candidates in action.

Jay Leno's guests on Wednesday night were Geena Davis, Jackson Browne and Northern Exposure's Darren Burrows. "And," the Tonight Show host announced with pride in a network promo, "no presidential candidates!"

It was a rare respite. For weeks, Ross Perot and Bill Clinton have been taking their campaign to almost any TV studio that would open its doors, from the network morning shows to Arsenio Hall. Last week President Bush reluctantly joined the media blitz, fielding questions from everyday folks for an hour and a half on CBS This Morning. TV's talking heads have never been so garrulous.

Some pundits are worried that these candidate Q-and-A sessions have supplanted regular newscasts with something less rigorous journalistically. The carping seems misguided. The citizen forums have not replaced the news; they have replaced other forms of campaigning. What's more, they compare favorably with more mainstream TV-news venues. When Barbara Walters talked with Bush on 20/20 not long ago, the encounter was so carefully stage-managed that her earnest voice-over ("The President's greeting was warm, his desk clear") sounded like parody. ABC's Peter Jennings aired a prime-time special last week on Perot, but the rehash of familiar material was merely a warm-up to the lively 1-hr. 40-min. "town meeting" that followed.

Perot's appearances have the suspense of a good TV movie: Will the mysterious billionaire lose his composure and reveal a dark side? Perot made no obvious gaffes during the ABC forum, in which he fielded questions from studio-audience members in 10 cities. His testiness was apparent early on, when he opened the show by rebutting several points in the Jennings program. But he was surprisingly collected, though not particularly convincing, when a gay activist shouted out a denunciation of his stand on naming homosexuals to his Cabinet. (He is concerned, he said, that such a person would be "destroyed" in Senate confirmation hearings.)

Perot's TV manner has its engaging side, sprinkled with the chummy colloquialisms of a small-town businessman ("You follow me?" "Pretty simple stuff, right?"). But his humble routine is growing less convincing with exposure. One questioner compared Perot to Jesse Jackson -- both have been criticized for lack of office-holding experience -- and asked why the Texas billionaire was any more qualified to be President. "I don't claim that I am," Perot replied. "That's up to the people." Jennings prodded gently, "But surely you think you're qualified." Perot's response: "I'm not going to sit here and brag on myself," thus raising the question of why he was sitting there at all.

Clinton's TV appearances seem both more smoothly presidential and more drably predictable. Taking call-in questions on NBC's Today show last Tuesday, Clinton had his act down pat, greeting each caller by name ("Good morning, Lucille") and giving carefully measured recitations on everything from education loans to women's rights. His class-president cool was broken just once, when an avowed supporter asked if Clinton would clear up his stance on the Gennifer Flowers allegations: "Just skip any weasel words and give us a | direct answer." Clinton proceeded to repeat his familiar weasel words: Flowers' story about their alleged affair was "not the truth," the Clinton marriage has "had some troubles," he and his wife still "love each other very much."

Compared with Bush in his stilted performance on CBS This Morning, however, Clinton looked like Bart Simpson. Instead of phoned-in questions, the President faced a polite group of people culled from the line waiting for a White House tour. Sitting in the Rose Garden, they were understandably reluctant to embarrass their host. Yet even Bush's programmed responses were revealing. For one thing, astute viewers learned that the President's phrase "Let me put that in perspective" is like a road sign: EVASIVE GENERALIZATION AHEAD. And Bush's tactic of touting his Administration's record at every turn seemed laughably transparent. "How are you helping the rain forest?" asked a little girl from Georgia. "By having the best environmental record of any country," replied the President.

The chief complaint of this campaign season is that the candidates are avoiding "the issues." But the issues can be overrated. An hour or two of spontaneous give-and-take provides an important glimpse of the candidate in real, human interaction: a taste of his temperament, a reading of his sincerity, a feeling for how he relates to people and to pressure.

Everyone is learning the game quickly. The most significant question of the campaign thus far may have come from Katie Couric, the host for Perot's two- hour call-in session on Today in mid-June. After he gave a waffling answer to a question about Social Security benefits, Couric shrewdly tossed the ball back to the caller: "Roberta, are you satisfied with that answer?" She wasn't, and Perot had to try again. Now more grass-roots questioners are probing with follow-ups, insisting on "specifics." At a time when TV journalism has come to the people, the people are learning to be journalists.