GOP Aims For An Interactive, User-Friendly Convention

By Brooks Jackson/CNN

WASHINGTON (July 17) -- Bored by political conventions? Get ready for something new at the Republican convention next month -- a made-for-television convention modeled after the infomercial.

Says Tony Fabriozio, a Dole campaign pollster: "Major networks have decided to severely cut back on the convention coverage time, which means that you have literally an hour, an hour and half, each night to try to communicate your message, to put your best face to the American public." (192K WAV sound)

Republicans ran polls and focus groups to discover what went wrong in 1992. Highly partisan, red-meat speeches like the one given by conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan did not test well.

"Where many Americans have problems is with perceptions that there is a certain level of intolerance in the Republican party," says GOP pollster Steve Lombardo. "That will not be a part of the '96 convention." (160K WAV sound)

Long speeches don't test well, either. Bill Clinton spent years living down his 32-minute speech in 1988. Republicans aim to keep most of their speeches to about five minutes.

Says Fabriozio: "You're going to see shorter speeches, you're going to see more average Americans talking, you're going to see use of interactivity..."

People used to watch conventions because they made news. A story unfolded. Now conventions are staged, scripted and controlled. And the ratings have been lousy. So, it's out with the slow, boring bits and in with fast pacing and quick cuts. It's not MTV, exactly, but more like Sesame street. Tune in for as just seven minutes and you'll get their message.

It will be a convention sliced and diced for short attention spans. "I would say yeah, it is comparable to something like an infomercial, in the sense that that message will be repeated over and over and over," said Lombardo.

Call-ins tested well in 1992 and made people feel connected, as did the toll-free "800" numbers pioneered by Democrat Jerry Brown.

"What voters tell us is that they feel a lot more that they are a part of a campaign or a political party that actually asks them their opinion and listens to their opinion," says Alex Castellanos, a Republican media consultant. "And the 1-800 number is a symbol of that."

So Republicans are wiring the San Diego convention center to make it an interactive convention, with piped-in testimonials from ordinary voters. There will be two screens behind the podium, for remote feeds from other parts of the country and talk-back programming from the convention floor.

Will that reel in the voters for Dole? Television executive Robert Wussler, a veteran of covering conventions, says an interactive, infomercial convention can work. "Right now the Republicans don't have a cohesive message," he said. "They need to come up with a cohesive message, get behind the message and all sing from the same song book."

You may be asking, what is the Dole message? The official convention theme is"Restoring the American Dream." For details on what that means, exactly, stay tuned.

This story originally appeared on CNN's "Inside Politics."

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