The Boston Globe 
Media pro Buchanan used experience to advantage: Commentator's ease on small
screen is clear
RAN 2/21/96
By Peter S. Canellos, Globe Staff 
       
       MANCHESTER, N.H. - Patrick J. Buchanan, who boasted earlier this
       week of being "`Crossfire'-trained," drew on skills honed during
       his decades as a TV commentator to close his New Hampshire
       campaign with a rush of sharp on-camera appearances.
       
       While Sen. Bob Dole shied away from TV interviews after last
       Thursday's debate, Buchanan played the media like the professional
       he is, according to television journalists interviewed yesterday.
       
       That extra measure of TV experience, some said, might have made a
       difference in what was shaping up as one of the tightest primary
       races in the state's history. Forty-eight percent of Buchanan's
       supporters said in exit polls that they got most of their
       information from television.
       
       ``He's the most comfortable - that's the most important thing on
       television,'' said Candy Crowley, a veteran CNN correspondent.
       ``Practice makes perfect, and God knows he's had a lot of it.''
       
       Indeed, Buchanan was a participant on television's pioneering
       political talk show, ``The McLaughlin Group,'' which is syndicated
       across the country. Then, for nearly a decade, he matched wits
       with liberal commentators Tom Braden and Michael Kinsley on
       ``Crossfire,'' the CNN debate program.
       
       Crowley, for one, said the extra ease that comes with experience
       shows up in surprising ways. ``He has that automatic gate in his
       head that keeps him from saying things he doesn't want to hear
       come out of his mouth,'' she said.
       
       For example, she pointed to a clumsy Dole sound bite during a
       speech Monday in which the senator said, ``I didn't realize that
       jobs and trade and what makes America work would become a big
       issue in the last few days of this campaign.'' Dole's spokesmen
       said he meant to say he didn't expect global free trade to be a
       big issue.
       
       ``It sounded like he had no idea people cared about jobs,''
       Crowley said. ``That wouldn't have happened with Pat.''
       
       Indeed, Buchanan's campaign staff has never had to do damage
       control after an embarrassing misstatement by the boss. Even the
       normally facile Lamar Alexander was caught on a microphone
       haranguing an aide to find out the price of milk, coffee and eggs,
       after a surprise question from a reporter.
       
       Buchanan's campaign manager called him ``the new great
       communicator.'' Most television analysts have declined to hand
       Buchanan the mantle of Ronald Reagan - Buchanan is more of a
       fighter and lacks Reagan's soothing presence - but all agreed he
       was the best TV candidate of the Republicans running this year.
       
       ``I think his television training came through,'' said John
       Cochran, who covered the New Hampshire primary for ABC. ``His
       `Crossfire' experience came through, in terms of coming up with
       one-liners.''
       
       Buchanan, whose career has included stints as a speechwriter for
       Richard Nixon and communications director for Reagan, produced the
       most memorable phrase of the campaign season, ``conservatism of
       the heart,'' to describe his political philosophy.
       
       Frank Sesno, host of CNN's ``Late Edition,'' said Buchanan put his
       full panoply of communications skills - not just his TV presence -
       on display during the campaign.
       
       When Buchanan's national campaign co-chairman, gun advocate Larry
       Pratt, was revealed to have had ties to white supremacist groups,
       Buchanan handled the crisis like a pro, ``in one news cycle,''
       Sesno said.
       
       Buchanan accepted Pratt's ``leave of absence,'' thereby assuring
       that the story would die quickly. But then, sensitive to the
       charge of abandoning a friend, he praised Pratt during the debate
       last Thursday. Buchanan's show of loyalty impressed some voters,
       especially those who share Pratt's impassioned opposition to
       gun-control legislation.
       
       ``To say that Pat is entirely a creature of television misses the
       point,'' Sesno said. ``Pat was a street fighter from way back ...
       Pat loves a good debate, whether it's behind a podium or in front
       of a camera. So maybe it's the other way around. Maybe he's good
       on television because he's such a good debater.''
       
       But Lisa von Lichtenberg, executive director of the television
       company Videolink, said Buchanan would be ``a natural'' for
       television even without his debating skills.
       
       ``I feel his on-screen presence, his persona, is dynamic,'' von
       Lichtenberg said. ``He has a characteristic trait of all leaders
       in the television industry. He has the ability to make eye
       contact.''
       
       This story ran on page 14 of the Boston Globe on 02/21/96.
       
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