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 | PARALLEL WORLDS
AUGUST 16, 1996TRANSCRIPT |
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As presented to the American living room, the Republican convention was a spectacle of old-fashioned democracy. But those in attendance were confronted by a very modern reality: large corporate sponsorship. Corporate America came to San Diego to rub elbows with the men who make the laws and regulations that affect them. But this profusion of money and salesmanship has created an atmosphere that some find inappropriate.
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Click here to explore the Online NewsHour's Convention '96 coverage, featuring delegate letters, transcripts and RealAudio of floor speeches, commentary and analysis.SPOKESPERSON: T-shirts, T-shirts
PAUL SOLMAN: Outside the Republican Convention, the Snapple company's T-shirt and hat giveaway. Call it "The Other Convention"--not the one you ve been seeing at home on TV, but for many in San Diego this week, a key part of their experience here. Corporate America out in force from those marketing their products to those underwriting the event itself -- a $50 million spectacle, as much as half the money ponied up by corporations in cash and services. Michael Frisby with partner Phil Koontz has been covering "the other convention" for the 'Wall St. Journal.'
MICHAEL FRISBY, Wall Street Journal: We very quickly came to the conclusion that these conventions aren't about politics anymore--they're all about money.
PAUL SOLMAN: Of course business is all about money--and how to make it. So it should come as no surprise that reason number one for companies to be here is simply hawking their wares.
FRED SAINZ: This is in essence the superbowl of politics, so companies want to be here in order to be seen as being in the forefront of a movement.
PAUL SOLMAN: Fred Sainz is a deputy campaign manager who works with corporate sponsors at the convention, among them Pacific Telesys, the West Coast phone company, which is using the convention to introduce its challenge to the cellular telephone: Personal Communications Systems or PCS.
FRED SAINZ: It's not a political thing; it's a marketing item that they thought enough of the demographics of our people and who comes to a Republican National Convention that they sought to introduce it here.
PAUL SOLMAN: Now Pacific Telesis ran a hospitality suite for delegates throughout the week. We weren't allowed in with a camera, but from the outside there didn't appear to be much technology in evidence. Still, said the CEO, Michael Fitzpatrick, the company was here to sell.
MICHAEL FITZPATRICK, Pacific Telesis: For us, it's a great opportunity to launch a new product.
PAUL SOLMAN: So marketing is one good reason corporations have convened here in San Diego; another is competition. If Pacific Telesys, one of the Baby Bells, is here, can AT&T stay home?
WAYNE JACKSON, AT&T: This is a competitive communications business in America today. It's about to get much more competitive in the next few months as the local telephone market opens up. Since 1984, it's been a monopoly dominated by the Bell Companies. That's a piece of business we intend to get in and getting our name and our technological prowess before the delegates who are here is an important part of that marketing strategy.
PAUL SOLMAN: There's also a third reason for corporations to be here, evident at the Chrysler pavillion: Promoting the corporate image.
ROB LIBERATORE, Chrysler Corporation: I know why we're here
. We're here because we are very proud of the rebirth of this company. We want to tell that story to a very influential audience which is community leaders, politicians, and media. And we want the world to know that we're sort of an unusual, unconventional company, and that's why we picked a convention site to do this unconventional, sort of marvelous exhibit.
PAUL SOLMAN: But remember, this is a political event. And so, above all, companies are here to play to the
politicians. Sometimes they overplay. In 1972, San Diego got, and promptly lost, the Republican convention when a $400,000 contribution by ITT to help finance the event caused a scandal. The company was fending off an antitrust action at the very same time.
Two years later, Congress approved taxpayer financing of political conventions, now amounting to $12.4 million, but nowhere near enough to cover a spectacle like the one this week. Laws restricting corporate contributions have loosened over the years, and although some remain, says reporter Frisby--
MICHAEL FRISBY: There's enough loopholes in all the laws and the regulations that basically allow all of the corporate executives and big fund raisers to rub elbows with all of the policy makers and key committee chairmen who basically write the laws that regulate their industries.
PAUL SOLMAN: There was certainly enough elbow-rubbing room in San Diego this week, with corporate events ranging from the elaborate and expensive to the, well, creative.
HAWAIIAN BAND PLAYING 'HELP ME RHONDA'
PAUL SOLMAN: This was a Gilligan's Island theme party for several Northeastern delegations, hosted by a group of pharmaceutical firms. Union Pacific, meanwhile, recently merged with Southern Pacific, returned delegates to the railroad splendor of yesteryear.
Now, if corporations often required badges for admission to their galas, their larger purpose was no secret. Consider, for instance, Eli Lilly, the drug company. It was pushing the message of preventive medicine--by screening for diabetes. Lilly happens to be the world's largest maker of the treatment for diabetes: insulin. And Lilly's Mitch Daniels thought the convention an ideal spot to make the company's case.
MITCH DANIELS, Eli Lilly: It's sort of a one-stop shopping opportunity to get that message over in an informal way. I think there's a measure of civic responsibility too, and we'll be supporting both conventions, trying to communicate both places but principally an opportunity in a very compressed but also relaxed atmosphere to talk about issues that are hard to talk about in the day to day hurly-burly of congressional calendars.
PAUL SOLMAN: This was an AT&T party at the San Diego Children's Museum. There were lobbyists galore, many from the various telecommunications companies. The guest of honor: Senator Ted Stevens, a senior member of both the Appropriations and Commerce committees. Instead of bucking directly for, say federal phone contracts, they schmoozed with the senator, and talked technology in general, rather than products in particular.
SENATOR TED STEVENS: But I draw the line to having one that reaches me on the string when I'm fishing. I don't want one that reaches me.
GENTLEMAN: The beauty of wireless is all you got to do is turn it off.
PAUL SOLMAN: Meanwhile, outside the convention, a rotating schedule of protestors. Organizations get 55 minutes each to make their case in a small, cordoned-off area.
KAREN ATKINSON: We call it the free speech cage (laughing). Does that tell you what we think of it?
PAUL SOLMAN: This night it was members of Side Street Projects, a non-profit artists' group from Santa Monica. They had no doubt about their ability to buy access here at the convention.
JESSE AVILA: It's pretty obvious to me that it is a corporate environment in there. You can just see it by the city, by the logos, and who's got where, and who's been part of it. If you're not part of the establishment here, then you're not welcome, and that's really unfortunate.
PAUL SOLMAN: Side Street members went on to exercise their rights to free speech with an anti-Bob Dole chant.
PROTESTERS CHANTING: Go home, Bob. Go home, Bob.
PAUL SOLMAN: Dole supporters were none too happy about it.
DOLE SUPPORTER: If you're going to speak your mind, speak what you got to say, but "Go home, Bob"--that's being just stupid--that's not accomplishing anything. If you want to make a point, then speak what's on your mind
PAUL SOLMAN: But earlier that afternoon, Deputy convention manager Fred Sainz had expressed a belief he shares with many Republicans here: that corporations have free speech rights of their own.
PAUL SOLMAN: The Wall Street Journal's Michael Frisby, on the other hand, took a rather different view.
MICHAEL FRISBY: They're doing nothing illegal. It's just that, when the American public thinks of political conventions, they don't think about the money, they don't think about the sponsorships; they think that this is about Dole and Kemp, when actually this is really about something else.
PAUL SOLMAN: By the end of the week, of course the official Republican convention had anointed its official candidates and ended its business. Much of the other convention, however, considerably less partisan, was about to head for Chicago, where the Democrats will provide additional opportunities for business when they convene later this month.
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