Talk Shows Pursue White House Contenders

Aug. 30, 2007 — -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., joked with David Letterman Thursday night her ex-president husband wouldn't be her pick for vice-president should she win the Democratic nomination -- because he can't.

"He looked into that," Clinton told Letterman, in her seventh appearance on "The Late Show." The leading Democratic candidate also read her "Top Ten List," of campaign promises, including number three: "We will finally have a president who doesn't mind pulling over and asking directions."

The high drama of the 2008 presidential race has many producers of daytime chat shows and late-night talk programs in hot pursuit of interviews with the White House contenders. Booking an interview with a leading presidential candidate can be as much of a score as booking a Hollywood star — and the presidential candidates are more than happy to oblige.

Clinton will joke it up on Friday with another talk show host, taping an appearance for the season premiere of the Ellen DeGeneres' show that will air Sept. 4.

The Clinton campaign got into the act this week, sending an email to supporters asking them to submit questions they would like Clinto to ask Ellen.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a frequent late-night guest, joked about his 71st birthday Tuesday on the "Tonight Show With Jay Leno."

"We're doing so poorly, I thought I would announce on this show that I'm running for president of the United States," McCain said jokingly during a wide-ranging chat about Iraq, his campaign and his birthday.

Clinton and McCain are just two of the many 2008 presidential candidates who are appearing regularly on daytime and late-night talk shows in an attempt to charm undecided voters, many of whom are female.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who first burst onto the daytime talk show circuit in a 2006 appearance on "Oprah" about his book "The Audacity of Hope" is taping an appearance on the "Tyra Banks" show next month.

While the "Oprah" show hasn't booked any of the presidential candidates for the fall season, the rainmaker talk show queen is hosting a celebrity-packed fundraising party for Obama at her $64 million Southern California estate Sept. 8.

Talk Show Bookers Hotly Pursue '08 Candidates

Producers admit they want the presidential candidates on their shows because they can be huge ratings draws for their audiences.

"It is important to both Ellen and Tyra that their audiences get to the know the candidates firsthand in a way that humanizes them and we want to be a part of the political process in a nonpartisan way," said Hillary Estey McLoughlin, president of Telepictures Productions, a division of Warner Bros., which syndicates both shows.

McLoughlin said both candidates will draw the show's largely female audience. "Ellen has a very influential audience of soccer moms that the candidates know are important to reach," said McLoughlin, "Tyra's show [has] a younger audience, which is also key to the election."

Both Democratic front-runners were also approached by ABC's daytime talk show "The View." They will appear on the show in September when the show rolls out its newest co-host, comedian Whoopi Goldberg.

"I think Americans are interested in who our next president will be and these candidates are as big a draw as any celebrity," said Bill Geddie, "The View's" executive director.

Geddie said this will be Clinton's third appearance and Obama's second on the show.

Candidates Show off Personalities and Policies

Presidential candidates have been appearing on entertainment talk shows for decades. President Kennedy appeared on the "Jack Paar Show" in 1960 and a campaigning Bill Clinton won over the crowd playing the saxophone on the "Arsenio Hall Show" in 1992.

Campaigns argue the appearances are a good way to connect with a different type of audience than those watching the Sunday morning political talk shows or televised debates.

"These talk shows are another opportunity for people who have not made it to a campaign event or rally to see another side of Barack Obama," Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. "This is an opportunity for people to see a more personal side including his sense of humor, his knowledge of sports and music."

"The more people get to know Hillary, the more they like her," Clinton campaign spokesman Isaac Baker said about Clinton's back-to-back talk show tapings this week.

McCain in particular likes the late-night format. He has appeared on the "Daily Show With Jon Stewart" 10 times — more than any other politician to date. McCain was also the first sitting U.S. senator to host "Saturday Night Live" in 2002.

"He has a great sense of humor and late-night TV is an opportunity to talk to people in a different way and have a little fun," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said.

While few people actually stay up to watch the late-night shows — Leno had 5.4 million viewers in May and Letterman had 4.4 million viewers— they still give candidates an enormous opportunity to increase their popularity.

"Relatively few people actually watch Letterman and Leno," pollster John Zogby said, "but the clips of the politicians get played over and over again on cable television and on YouTube, making these shows more important to candidates."

The 'Oprah Effect': Reaching Politically Inattentive Viewers

But there is increasing evidence that suggests these appearances are more politically savvy than once thought.

Some political scholars say the appearances on so-called soft news shows like the "Oprah Winfrey Show" and nightly talk shows like the "Tonight Show With Jay Leno" can influence undecided voters who wouldn't otherwise expose themselves to political information.

"People who are politically inattentive who consume politics via soft news are more likely than their counterparts who don't consume soft news to vote according to their self interest," said Matthew Baum, associate professor of political science and communications studies at UCLA.

Baum, the author of "The Oprah Effect: How Soft News Helps Inattentive Citizens Vote Consistently," said chat shows gives presidential candidates their best chance at reaching people they could actually persuade, while doing it in a relatively friendly context.

"They get a much friendlier reception on these shows than say on the nightly news or Sunday morning political round tables," Baum said.

"Sometimes they'll ask real policy questions in between the questions about their family and their hobbies," he said, "but usually the candidate answers however they want and they don't get probed so it's a less hostile environment for presenting yourself. You get to control the frame much more effectively."

"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," which attracts about 1.5 million viewers, attracts viewers who are generally knowledgeable about politics. Thus these more politically aware viewers are less impressionable, Baum said.

In 2004, 9 percent of Americans said they looked to late-night TV shows like "Leno" and "Stewart" to help them form their political opinions, according to the Pew Research Center.

Some argue the political focus on infotainment represents a "dumbing down" of political discourse in America.

"This is all sappy feel goodism," said David Horowitz, founder of the former Center for the Study of Popular Culture. "We're in the midst of a global war with Islamic fanatics. How is telling jokes with Jay Leno going to help that?"

However Baum argues it's better for people to get some political information by watching daytime or late-night shows than no political information at all.

"Excepting shows like 'Colbert' and the 'Jon Stewart' show to some extent, you've got a relatively politically inattentive audience, people that are not hard-core partisans who are persuadable," Baum said. "There's not that many of those undecided voters and so if you're a candidate you've got to go where that audience is."

With files from the Associated Press.