page 4
daily nebraskan
friday, november 11, 1977
o
Ouch.
We knew it all along, but never really sat down
to figure out what we're paying for the conven
ience of a short walk to campus bookstores for
drugstore items.
The price of convenience varies with each item,
but on many of the small things-like aspirin to
deal with our financial headaches-it can run up
to 40 or 50 cents.
That stings.
It's hard to blame the campus bookstores.
They have to make a living, too. As the bookstore
managers explain today (see page 1), they just
don't sell enough goods to get a discount for
volume.
What is there to do? Maybe there are some les-
sons to be learned from the Nebraska Union.
A few years ago, the Union was losing money
cashing checks for students. But they wanted to
continue it as a service for students.
The Union's solution was the campus bank.
A larger business was sought to take over the
loathesome chore in return for a shot at the grow
ing student market.
The campus bookstores or the university
might encourage a similar arrangement, if it's
possible. A deal with one of the city's busy
discount stores-which already qualifies for
reduced volume rates-might prove profitable for
both students and the business.
Canned candidates Mr. Whipple for time
New York-Now nothing touches you.
National political campaigns long ago went out of our
lives and onto television, and in New York's recent elec
tion the last chances for local campaigns to remain human
dissolved.
Through the dark, wet day and night before Election
Day, politicians placed more than 250 commercials on
city's six television channels. No longer is it necessary to
meet a neighbor. He, too, is somewhere on the dial.
The commercials shown were of people running for
mayor of New York City, governor of New Jersey, dis
trict attorney of Queens, county executive of Nassau
County, Long Island, and for even smaller offices in
Connecticut. Each winner believes that it was his face,
that great stirring face on television, Which did it all for
him.
jiil Ol
n -Ja
Soon, candidates for local school, board elections will
be trying to raise money for commercials. The rest of the
country will follow, as usual.
Only a little while ago, people in New York came out
and saw the candidates running for mayor at least once
during the campaign. Hie candidate stood on a street
corner someplace and spoke and breathed and changed
expressions naturally. You got a sense of the guy.
The voters got a reflection of the candidate from the
newspapers and television, but the personal appearance
was the hard charge.
On television
Now candidates are on television so much-and the
newspaper stories about them speculate on the candi
dates' television spots-that less and less of the public
bothers to come out to see anybody in person.
The things you once used to judge a candidate, the
look in his eyes, the tone of the unpolished voice, the
spontaneous wit, are unimportant. You see him on
commercials now, and you cannot hear him through the
smoothness.
I think the commercials for the two main contenders
for mayor of New York, Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo,
were of nominal value in the election. They impressed
newspaper reporters more than voters.
For the big push in their campaigns, candidates
bought time as close to a news program as possible.
TV news audience
Television news audiences are mostly women with
children and old people. The usual commercials in news
shows are for diapers, loose dentures, toilet paper, multi
vitamins, bathroom cleansers and old age tonics; accord
ing to television, irregularity is the major problem in the
United States.
So the day before the election you had men running
for mayor appearing on commercials that were sand
wiched between the Tidy Bowl man and stained dentures.
Koch was pitted against Mr. Whipple.
Television makes everything of the same weight: the
viewer assigns equal value to a candidate talking about
jobs and to an announcer pitching for clean bathroom
enamel. The political commercials were senseless to run.
All the candidates accomplished by being on was to allow
television to turn them, too, into trivia.
Voice from cold
A man standing outdoors in the November chill, calling
out in a hoarse voice about a city's troubles, has an im
pact. He fails. He stumbles over a word. But he is alive
and trying to tell you something. You hear him once and
go away with the memory. But the mayoralty race in New
York this year began with television commercials in June.
The candidates wanted to tell the viewers about the
great crisis. But when you place the problem of the South
Bronx in 30 seconds in the company of cleaners and end
less toilet paper rolls, then the South Bronx becomes just
another product.
People begin to think of the South Bronx as something
that comes in a box. They become bored with it. The
South Bronx again? We've heard so much about it. Isn't
there something new?
But the South .Bronx is real and what it stands for
could end New York as we know it. -
Commercial campaign
Between Koch and Cuomo they spent about $3 million
on their campaigns, most of it in commercials. As news
paper people rarely see television and know less about it
than anyone, they immediately make the commercials the
most important and mysterious part of the campaign.
Koch won runoff because of fine political ability. He
won. The commercials didn't.
For the campaign in New York we had Jerry Rafshoon
who has been called by newspaper writers a "media
genius" for hisjvork for President Jimmy Carter. The
notion is, however, that the initial success that opened
the nomination to Carter came because many Northern
people, hearing that Southern accent, felt Carter was the
proper person to handle the blacks for them.
You needed no geniuses for this. Just somebody to
make sure that Carter didn't lose his accent.
In New York, Rafshoon tried to help Mario Cuomo,
who did well in the primary because he was inept at
normal, healthy political bargaining. It was as if Rafshoon
were not present. Which is good, because if his ability
counted, Rafshoon would have Cuomo under 10 percent.
Make name known
In the future, local politicians could walk away from
the insanity and enormous expense of competing with
bathroom products and use the medium only for what
it can do best for your campaign: make your name
known.
A politician could buy 10-second spots. His ad would
consist of his name coming on the screen and staying
there for 10 seconds. The name would be in simple block
letters, sans serif. This means with no fancy curls on the
letters.
Then an announcer would read the name for the aud
ience. "Jimmy Breslin for Comptroller. A Fine Man."
Then give the paid for by and the commercial would
be over.
It would cost $30 to make and would require almost
loose change in comparison to the cost of 30-second
commercials.
Soon, in the street, people would think they had heard
great things about you. And it would be so much easier
on the ego than the present system, which recently
had politicians all around New York losing badly to Pre
paration H on the screen.
Copyright 1977, Jimmy Breslin
Distributed by the Chicago Tribune-New York News
Syndicate, Inc.
Jimmy edgy, is candidate for Ideas Anonymous
It's ?in mnre than a u,tkr inr limmv Tartar n unn kM -
It's been more than a week since Jimmy Carter
faced up to charges that his administration was floun
dering in too many undertakings. That's when he pro
mised a nationally-televised press conference that he
wouldn't have another idea until next January at the
earliest.
arthur hoppe
innocent bijotandof
While I wholeheartedly approved his taking the
pledge, I realized at the time how difficult it must be
for a president not to have an idea now and then. So I
dropped by the White House the other night to see
how he was bearing up.
I found him in the Oval Office. On his desk was a
sign: Don't Think! He was watching 'The Gong
Show.'
"J have no idea who you are, praise heaven," he
said, "but have a seat. Thank goodness for television.
It's all tliat'f pulled me through this first awful week.
Do you have any idea
"No, thanks," I said hastily. "None for me."
"I appreciate that," he said. "It's terrible watching
ither people having wonderful ideas when you can't
have one. That's why I don't mind cocktail parties."
Beads of perspiration glistened on his upper lip.
"Sometimes 1 don't see how any president could go
through this!" b
'Think of Jerry Ford," I said quietly.
He pulled himself together.
"Right, he said. "And somehow I must. Oh, I
knew I was in trouble when I realized I had to have an
idea first think in the morning. Even before break
fast! Then I'd sneak out of the office for another
around ten.
'Three-idea business lunches were routine. I'd have
several before dinner and a couple of hot ones at bed
time to help me sleep.
He shuddered. Tt got so that on the morning after
1 couldn't remember a single idea I'd had the night be
fore. Then came this terrible fear: What if I woke up in
bed with a strange idea? How would I explain it to
Rosalynn?"
By now his hands were trembling.
"I tllOU&ht I COliU taiw nff arwt hcrnmc a social
thinker. You know, just a couple of ideas a day. But
I can't handle the stuff. I'd have a teeny, little one.
like: "Hey! Let's double production of the Cruise
missile!" And the next thing I knew I'd be off on a
week-long binge on the Middle East.
"So I quit cold turkey. What did it was that I
noticed t all my friends kept saying the same thing:
That's a nice idea, Jimmy, but don'l you think vou've
had enough?" -
"It's tough," I agreed. "But think of the rewards.
Youll wake up every day clear-headed, aglow with
new-found energy. . .'
"Energy!" he cried, leaping to his feet. "Now here's
an idea. .."
I tried desperately to stop him, but it was too late.
He was carousing around the room, be Hawfc s-
If we grant a 6.2 percent tax credit to "those who
achieve 2.9 percent solar efficiency by removing 31.6
percent of their shirts to offset a S3.24per-barrel tax
on crude sun tan oil. . .'
No, I know Jimmy Carter meant well. But
presidents who have no ideas are all too few and far
between.
Copyright 1977. Chronicle Publishing Co.
