INTERVIEW WITH ALEX
CASTELLANOS
(part 2)
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Q & A
Q:
Tell me a little more about why good old fashion progressive, call it comparative,
call it negative advertising is good for democracy.
CASTELLANOS: Politics is a lot like sex.
You know, why are there male and female. Well, it turns out that, through
the battle of the sexes, the eternal conflict, you get, you get one point
of view and another, you get one set of genes and another, they kind of conflict
and combine and bam, you know, the next thing you know life moves forward,
man learns to walk upright, you know, use the spear and the credit card, all
those kinds of things, that's how, it moves life forward. Then, when you take
all the conflict out of it, what you've got left is the amoeba. And it's kind
of a dead end path, there's no innovation, there's no choice, there's no opportunity
for growth. Politics is like that. It's like a courtroom. You want, you want
to make sure voter's hear at least both sides and can make a choice. You want
to make sure voters are informed about it. But more than that it's the most
creative part of the process.
It's what gives the most opportunity for change and growth. If you take all
the negative aspects out of politics, if you take all the chaos out of politics,
if you take all the divisiveness out of politics, what your left with is,
is very bland, unimaginative oatmeal. And eventually it's concrete, it just
sets and nothing changes. That's horrible. You know, ultimately all this messy
stuff we have in politics, all this conflict, all this chaos, by another name,
it's freedom. And I, I think that a country that has fought so hard to earn
its freedom and keep its freedom, shouldn't give an ounce of it away.
Q: You tell a great story about the purpose
of advertising and how it can work, the story about a blind man...
CASTELLANOS: We often get folks, what
does a media consultant do in a campaign. There's, there's this myth now that
we're spin doctors. That we're out there to take something that's true and
turn it into something that isn't. And I think a better way to look at it
is the story of the blind man who is sitting on the sidewalk in New York City
with his dog and his cup and a little sign around his neck that said I'm blind.
And of course, New York City, nobody stops and puts anything in the cup. Until
the advertising guy walks by. And he sees what's going on and he pulls out
his marker and he writes a couple of words on the little sign. And then he
goes to the corner to watch. And all of a sudden, somebody walks buy, drops
a quarter in, somebody else walks by and drops a dollar in and nothing had
changed but everything had.
What had he written on his sign, and where it had only said "I am blind",
he had written, "It is spring, and I am blind". And what he had done was taken
something that was fundamentally true and not changed it, but just elevated
it. Made it something a little more personable, it touched your life. And
that's our job in a campaign. Find the truest thing you can do and elevate
it, reveal it in some dramatic way. That's what I try, on the good days, that's
what you feel you've done.
Q: What about the role, this year, of
outside groups, be they pro-life or pro-choice, be it term limits, be it the
Sierra Club, be it whoever. How does that change your business and campaigns?
CASTELLANOS: Politics has gotten a lot
more complicated. It used to be like boxing. There was, your candidate was
in the ring, the other candidate was in the ring, and you would sort it out.
Now you have all other kinds of people and groups climbing into the ring.
These advocacy groups who are raising money, spending money. So now there
not, there still may be two sides but there may be four, six, eight, ten different
campaigns involved. And so it's not like boxing anymore, it's a little bit
like the Texas chainsaw wrestling grudge match, you know. Everybody plays.
And, it's just made it a lot more complicated.
I think ultimately it takes a little more power out of the hands of the candidates.
But that's the way that messy thing democracy works. You know, people actually
get up there and try to have their own impact on the process. Don't you just
hate it when that happens.
Q: So it's that pesky first amendment?
CASTELLANOS: Gosh almighty, you know,
here Americans trying to run their own country. Who'd ever thought of such
a thing, it's ugly, it's messy. It's freedom. And, you know, you, in my experience
you can never fix too little freedom with less freedom. And that's the problem
with a lot of these campaign finance laws.
There, you have candidates out there who are chained to the parking meter.
They have to go out there and raise money a quarter at a time, a dollar at
a time, a hundred bucks at a time, so guess what, they spend their entire
lives raising money. And every reform that restricts their ability to raise
money makes money more important not less. I think the answer to that is let
them raise whatever they want.
Disclose it, let the press tell America about it, let their opponents tell
America about it. But you could free candidates from the constraints of this
fundraising with more freedom, not less.
Q: Still, you're rolling up your sleeves
with your chum Bob Squier to try to do something a bit different. Why do you
want to do that given the degree to which you believe in the kind of rough
and tumble, roll up your sleeves and go at 'em part of politics?
CASTELLANOS: I agreed to be a part of
this effort with no apologies about what I do or about doing negative commercials.
I think in many ways they're the solution not the problem. I do think that
in a lot of ways politics has gotten a bad name because the product, government,
has done such a lousy job. And, so I think we have an opportunity to remind
voters that politics is actually how we govern our governors, that politics
is freedom. It's our freedom to choose who governs us. That there's a lot
of good stuff and that it is important to be involved somehow. That, you know,
ultimately there's no 'them.' It's us. So I do think that the, I don't think
we necessarily need to go out there and say hey, politics is terrible, it's
broken, let's fix politics. No I think there's a lot of great stuff in politics
that is important.
Q: Bringing back in what you said before
about what you try to do in a political spot, how does that apply to this
project that you are doing with Bob Squier? In other words, what's the dramatic
moment, that little kernel about this country that you'd like to be able to
reveal?
CASTELLANOS: I think the truest thing
about, about this is that it's freedom. And it's how big and free you can
be as an American.
We can make politics small. We can give it away to someone else to social
mercenaries to hire, to solve all our problems for us. But I think ultimately
if we look at politics, we can say that it's ugly, it's chaotic at times,
it's divisive, it's a mess, and ain't that great. You know, that's how we
move forward. And look at all the good it can do. And ultimately, it's in,
totally in your hands. Unlike a lot of places in this world.
So that's, I think, the biggest message of all. That any, there's an effort
out there now, I think, to run down politics as a step to getting Americans
to surrender more of their freedom and more of their control of the political
process to "people who know better". People who will do it a little more neatly.
People who know what's good for you. It's a disaster. That's against everything
this country can be. You know, who, who would trade whatever we can be.
Here's one of the things that bothers me is this is such an exciting time.
The world is reinventing itself right now in front of us. You know, we look
ahead and we see the changes we're seeing right now in this country and imagine
the world we're living in, the country we're living in twenty years from now.
It's fabulous. It's scary that it's so promising right now. That at a time
like this, Americans would give up any power over their future to people who
know better, people who know what's good for you, people who say eat your
political oatmeal. You know, that's what's really healthy, not that messy
stuff you like. I think is a crime.
Q: How much of that for you is personal
and part of who you are, Alex Castellanos, and in your own family heritage
and that part of the story?
CASTELLANOS: I think the reason I got
into this whole mess to start with is my parents. We came over here from Havana,
Cuba. My parents came over here with, my parents came over here with $11 and
one suitcase, two kids. They didn't speak the language. They left everything
behind so that my sister and me could have a chance to be whatever we wanted
to be. So for me, it's all about that. How I could give away or watch anyone
give away a little bit of the freedom that they gave up everything so I could
have. You know, you can't do that, ever. It's all about freedom.
I've got some friends who write, who write for Hollywood. And they tell me
about writing movies. And we were talking one evening and they were telling
me that there's only one story. And it's the oldest one there is. And it's
always the story of man's journey from slavery to freedom, one way or the
other. Because that's the only ennobling thing, that's the only thing that
makes you bigger. But for me, yeah, it's, you know, they say it's dad, it's
mom, it's...You try to, I can't think of anything more important to do.
Q: Walk me through, then, how that experience
and your story, if it does indeed tie to the spot, one of the spots you're
the most famous for, which is the Jesse Helms, 'hands,' affirmative-action
story.
CASTELLANOS: Well that spot sure did cause
a lot of trouble didn't it. I'm very proud of it. I believe every bit of it.
You know, my name is Castellanos. My son is named Castellanos. It may be,
you know, one day he could get a job or he could get some deal because he
is of a some ethnic minority and all of that. I hope he never does. I think
that lessens you when you do that.
The message in that spot's very clear and that is nobody should get a job,
or be denied a job because of the color of their skin. The vast majority of
Americans believe that. And if it's wrong for us to discriminate that way
it's wrong for our government to discriminate that way. Again, it's freedom.
Now it wasn't very politically correct to say at the time but there's this,
you know, you always get the assault logged against you that there's something,
you know, when a conservative Republican says the same words that Martin Luther
King says, somehow he's racist. And I just don't buy that. I think you're
proscribed from talking about quotas and things like that because you're a,
you're a white guy.
Q: It's not playing the race card?
CASTELLANOS: Again, if I can't, I don't,
I don't give a damn if I'm white, black, or whatever, if I can't say that,
that giving somebody a job or denying them a job because of the color of their
skin, if I can't say that's wrong, this is not America. I believe that.
Q: Tell me a little about the technique
in that ad. The way in which you used hands, the color of the shirt, the ring
on the finger, those sorts of things.
CASTELLANOS: I'd like to think we have
an incredible amount of foresight and planning on this stuff but actually
with ten days to go this campaign was nine or ten points down. And this was
an issue that cut on a survey. And so what, wrote that spot Saturday night.
Produced it Sunday. Shipped it back to North Carolina in a car Sunday night
and had it on the air Monday noon. And the, the guy in the checked shirt actually
was the cameraman just because he happened to be dressed right. I was running
the camera. And we just flipped the camera over to his ring side so we could
see his wedding ring and again let everybody know that there's a family depending
on this. The piece of paper he's taking out of his, unfolding is a piece we
happened to find in a desk drawer in one of the props, they had a prop desk
so we just kind of threw it together. What makes that ad is not technique,
it's truth. It says something big and true that Americans believe and that
is you shouldn't get a job or be denied a job because of the color of your
skin. Tell me you don't believe that.
Q: How did that ad change things, or did
it change things for you?
CASTELLANOS: For me? I don't know. I've
never worried too much about, you know trying to be successful or not. I just
figured if you do good work and if you, you know, that part of things will
take care, take care of itself. So, for a long time, being involved in Jesse
Helms' race and doing Jesse Helms' races, you know, limited you. There are
a lot of folks that, you know, thought you were some three-eyed snake handler
trying to, in politics, you know, an extreme Republican. You know, now a lot
of those extreme Republican's ideas like balancing the budget and changing
welfare, are kind of mainstream. So, I think the country has kind of grown
into a lot of those ideas.
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continue (Castellanos interview part 3)