US campaign comedy: being funny is optional

SILVER SPRING – Have you heard the one about the presidential candidate who told such great jokes the American people elected him? Of course not.

That’s because being funny is not the point of political humour, at least not for those in the White House race. The point, according to a sober-sided group of speechwriters and joke-meisters at the Political Comedy Festival, is to make the candidate look human.”Humour is a great way to say the truth, to say things that spin doesn’t allow for,” said Mark Katz, a humorist who wrote one-liners for President Bill Clinton.”Its great secret is not to be funny — you take your laughs when you can get them — but you really want to leave the audience with the idea, ‘I kind of like that guy.”‘ At a panel discussion on presidential schtick last Sunday, Katz and others agreed on the basic parameters of campaign humour.Self-deprecation works well.Dirty jokes don’t.Simply getting out and mingling with people who are professionally funny can humanise the candidate.For that reason, presidential hopefuls routinely appear on the late-night comedy television circuit, said Terry Edmonds, a speechwriter for Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee.”It’s almost become a staple in presidential politics that you make the rounds of late night comedy shows,” Edmonds said, noting Kerry appeared on ‘CBS Late Night with David Letterman’ on September 20.”It’s really an opportunity… to humanise the candidate.Nobody wants to be a person who takes themself too seriously.”On the Letterman show, Kerry read a facetious list of Bush’s tax reform proposals, including “No estate tax for families with at least two US presidents” and “George W Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future.”LOW EXPECTATIONSPresidents and presidential candidates do have the advantage of low expectations, said Chriss Winston, a speechwriter for President George HW Bush, father of the current president.”The bar for presidential humour is slightly lower by virtue of the position, it’s kind of like the pope making a joke,” Winston said in an interview after the forum.”They may not have to be quite as funny as Jay Leno has to be every night.”Winston and others on the panel said President Bush, the Republican nominee, used humour to his advantage in his acceptance speech at his party’s convention, targeting his own occasional struggles with syntax to good effect.One line that was particularly effective, they said, was Bush’s comment that he knew he was in trouble when Arnold Schwarzenegger — the Austrian-born California governor whose own speech patterns have been lampooned — started correcting his English.Even though candidates for the White House are not expected to be terribly funny, one former Republican speechwriter hoped they would at least try.”I do wish that both of them would provide a little comic relief in this campaign,” said Patrick Butler, a speechwriter for President Gerald Ford.”It seems so grim and dreary to me.”His comments drew laughter and applause from the crowd at the AFI Silver Theater outside Washington, where the four-day festival offered such politically-themed films as ‘Wag the Dog’ and ‘Bob Roberts’.It also showed a new film by John Sayles called ‘Silver City’, a political murder mystery featuring a character named Dickie Pilager, a “user-friendly” gubernatorial candidate that Sayles said was meant to draw parallels to the current administration.- Nampa-ReutersThe point, according to a sober-sided group of speechwriters and joke-meisters at the Political Comedy Festival, is to make the candidate look human.”Humour is a great way to say the truth, to say things that spin doesn’t allow for,” said Mark Katz, a humorist who wrote one-liners for President Bill Clinton.”Its great secret is not to be funny — you take your laughs when you can get them — but you really want to leave the audience with the idea, ‘I kind of like that guy.”‘ At a panel discussion on presidential schtick last Sunday, Katz and others agreed on the basic parameters of campaign humour.Self-deprecation works well.Dirty jokes don’t.Simply getting out and mingling with people who are professionally funny can humanise the candidate.For that reason, presidential hopefuls routinely appear on the late-night comedy television circuit, said Terry Edmonds, a speechwriter for Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee.”It’s almost become a staple in presidential politics that you make the rounds of late night comedy shows,” Edmonds said, noting Kerry appeared on ‘CBS Late Night with David Letterman’ on September 20.”It’s really an opportunity… to humanise the candidate.Nobody wants to be a person who takes themself too seriously.”On the Letterman show, Kerry read a facetious list of Bush’s tax reform proposals, including “No estate tax for families with at least two US presidents” and “George W Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future.”LOW EXPECTATIONSPresidents and presidential candidates do have the advantage of low expectations, said Chriss Winston, a speechwriter for President George HW Bush, father of the current president.”The bar for presidential humour is slightly lower by virtue of the position, it’s kind of like the pope making a joke,” Winston said in an interview after the forum.”They may not have to be quite as funny as Jay Leno has to be every night.”Winston and others on the panel said President Bush, the Republican nominee, used humour to his advantage in his acceptance speech at his party’s convention, targeting his own occasional struggles with syntax to good effect.One line that was particularly effective, they said, was Bush’s comment that he knew he was in trouble when Arnold Schwarzenegger — the Austrian-born California governor whose own speech patterns have been lampooned — started correcting his English.Even though candidates for the White House are not expected to be terribly funny, one former Republican speechwriter hoped they would at least try.”I do wish that both of them would provide a little comic relief in this campaign,” said Patrick Butler, a speechwriter for President Gerald Ford.”It seems so grim and dreary to me.”His comments drew laughter and applause from the crowd at the AFI Silver Theater outside Washington, where the four-day festival offered such politically-themed films as ‘Wag the Dog’ and ‘Bob Roberts’.It also showed a new film by John Sayles called ‘Silver City’, a political murder mystery featuring a character named Dickie Pilager, a “user-friendly” gubernatorial candidate that Sayles said was meant to draw parallels to the current administration.- Nampa-Reuters