America's newest export industry: Political advisers

By Mark Stevenson

MEXICO CITY (AP): "U.S. advisers" was a term widely hated abroad after the Vietnam War and the Central American conflicts of the 1980s. Now advisers from Washington are a hot export again -- not for shooting wars, but for the battlefield of politics.

Paid political consultants are being welcomed with open arms by politicians from Argentina to Britain, from South Africa to South Korea -- all eager to learn American-style spin control and media savvy.

Over the last decade, American advisers have helped campaigns in dozens of countries. Recently, they have worked in what James Carville, former adviser to U.S. President Bill Clinton, calls the Big Three: Russia, Israel and Mexico -- countries where a single election can affect U.S. policy.

"There is not an election that's seriously contested around the world were Americans are not present as advisers on one side, or both," says Doug Schoen, a strategist who has advised politicians in about two dozen countries.

As the French did in the 17th century, the Americans are putting their stamp on the language and method of politics worldwide.

Campaign advisers in Mexico use English words like "pivoting" -- the tactic of evading hard questions by turning to larger issues. Terms like "focus group," "lobbying," "spin" and "spot" (as in television ad) are part of the international lexicon.

So while politicians in the United States are busying with this year's campaigns, the roster of American advisers who have helped or are helping Mexican candidates prepare for Mexico's own 2000 presidential race reads like a Who's Who of Washington political savvy: Carville, Schoen, Dick Morris, Stan Greenberg.

The cast has adopted what they call a friendly rivalry around the world: Morris' guy beat Carville's guy in Argentina, but Carville's candidate won in Mexico's presidential primary, and Schoen's lost. In Israel, Carville and Greenberg teamed to help their guy beat that of Republican consultant Arthur Finkelstein.

None of the consultants interviewed for this story would say how much they charge their foreign clients -- but all said no client had ever balked at their price. Estimates from last year's election in Israel ranged from US$ 300,000 to $600,000 per consultant. Some advisers have made enough money to open full- time offices in other countries.

Both critics and the consultants say U.S. campaign tactics have taken the world by storm: sound bites and 30-second television spots, and "war rooms" where spin is spun and candidates are quickly repositioned.

The list goes on: intentional ideological vagueness and simple slogans; constant polling and focus groups; niche marketing and lots of "photo ops."

"In some cases, the Americanization process has gone further than some advisers would like," Greenberg says.

Even American bluntness may be fashionable. Morris says he sat down with Fernando de la Rua early in Argentina's presidential campaign and told him his rival "is seen as corrupt but strong, and you're seen as honest but weak. Whoever gets well first will win." De la Rua, playing on an image of nonflashy competence and honesty, won the October election.

Many of the consultants now doing foreign work have been aligned with Clinton in the past and say they benefit from the president's popularity abroad -- and the fact his 1992 campaign was seen as a benchmark in turning liberal, out-of-power parties toward the center and to victory.

Later, in Britain and Germany, socialist parties made similar shifts and won -- with help from American consultants.

But some critics say the consultants' appeal is less noble: Clinton's advisers were able to deflect ethical questions and keep him high in opinion polls, skills that are attractive to a lot of foreign candidates.

Greenberg acknowledges that U.S. politics "is admired abroad, and not for wholly admirable reasons."

Some foreign campaign directors question the contributions of American consultants. Igor Malashenko, an adviser to Russian President Boris Yeltsin's 1996 re-election campaign, argues U.S. consultants didn't understand politics there.

The Americans boasted about helping Yeltsin win by creating a more youthful, dynamic image. But Malashenko says Russian advisers were shocked by tactics like Yeltsin's appearance at rock concerts -- and especially by his feeble attempt to dance onstage at one.

Malashenko believes those gestures hurt Yeltsin among older voters by reinforcing the notion he didn't care about millions of elderly Russians buffeted by rapid economic changes and foreign influences.

That's one reason Andres Pastrana ignored suggestions he hire big-name Washington advisers for his 1998 presidential campaign in Colombia.

An aide says he was afraid the Americans wouldn't appreciate the cultural differences between the United States and Latin America. Pastrana instead picked a lower-profile Clintonite and personal friend: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based consultant Nick Metropolis.

Carville concedes "that's a problem sometimes. We think like Americans."

Schoen, however, says such arguments are often just a smokescreen.

"When people tell you: 'Our country is different. Our people vote for different reasons,' it's usually the politicians who are out of touch with the people, rather than the people really being different," he says.

Morris estimates that "60 percent of what you need in running an election you can bring down with you, and 40 percent is unique to that country."

Latin America may present some of the most striking differences -- and some of the most rapid Americanization.

"They are used to races with themes, like compassion, helping people, justice," Morris says. "We deal much more with issues, because Americans tend not to believe candidates when they speak about themes. So we try to focus on specific decisions, and articulate them."

Latin American politics has "a quality of sincerity, of lyricism that percolates through the campaigns," he says. "I don't know if the United States is past that, or if we never had it."

In Mexico, Roberto Madrazo lost the ruling party's Nov. 7 presidential primary, but his media director, Carlos Alazraki, says he learned invaluable lessons from Schoen and other American advisers.

"They helped us a lot. They even taught us secrets like 'pivoting,"' Alazraki says, using the word in English -- the same language he uses to pronounce "adviser."

Schoen says the tactic of "pivoting" when faced with tough ethical questions worked well in Mexico, especially when Madrazo was confronted with evidence he spent millions of dollars more than the legal limit in a 1994 governor's race.

"We counseled Roberto not to avoid that kind of question, but to answer it by turning to one of the big issues" like the economy or education, Schoen says.

The American influence on campaigning has brought criticism everywhere, but the criticism has been harshest in Mexico -- perhaps a legacy of Mexicans' resentment over lost territory to the United States and what they consider bullying by Washington.

"All of this is part of an unthinking, uncritical acceptance of the lifestyle of our northern neighbor," former Foreign Minister Fernando Solana wrote recently in a newspaper column. "If we want to copy everything, we would convert ourselves rapidly into a sad, poor copy of one of the most manipulated market democracies in the world."

Mexican candidates are reluctant to discuss their use of U.S. consultants. The winner of the ruling party primary, Francisco Labastida, admitted only after repeated questioning that he had done so -- because "all the other candidates have them."

But Alazraki says the criticism of the consultants is "way overblown." Their assistance was key since the November race was Mexico's first primary election ever. "If I had to handle another primary, I would have less need of advisers," he says.

The consultants -- whether they work for a widely admired liberation movement like South Africa's African National Congress, or a ruling party like Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has held power for seven decades by means fair and foul -- say they are simply helping usher political parties through inevitable changes.

"In the Cold War, the CIA was all over the world teaching armies how to fight and intelligence services how to spy," Morris says. "Now, instead of teaching dictators how to be dictators, we're teaching people how to win elections.

"That's a positive thing. It's the American influence."