Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [164]
For twenty-nine years Donahue had been jumping into his audiences with a microphone, asking for their opinions (“Help me out here”) and taking questions from his viewers (“Is the caller there?”). He was the king of talk show television until Oprah arrived on the national scene in 1986 and immediately began trouncing him in the ratings. “She changed the ball game,” said Penn State professor Vicki Abt. “She started the down-and-dirty exploitative show, the trailer trash, the unwashed parading of dysfunction.… He tried to compete but he couldn’t do it as well or as badly. He was too smart.”
From the beginning Donahue was controversial and sometimes outrageous. His shows provoked thought and discussion, starting with his first guest, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the founder of American Atheists. Presenting a blunt denier of God to God-fearing America in 1967 was audacious, and it launched a new kind of talk show that all of his successors, including Oprah, would (try to) imitate. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader appeared on Donahue thirty-six times and personified the issue-oriented guest he most enjoyed interviewing. Unafraid to engage politicians, Donahue pressed the presidential candidate Bill Clinton in 1992 about his extramarital affairs. His audience booed him, and Clinton berated him, saying, “You are responsible for the cynicism in this country.” But Donahue did not flinch.
Oprah, on the other hand, refused to have politicians on her show for many years because she was afraid of losing viewers. When Senator Bob Dole (R-Kans.) asked to appear during the 1996 presidential campaign, she turned him down. “I don’t do politicians,” she said, because their interviews “would lack genuineness and real dialogue.” After rejecting Dole, Oprah polled her audience. “Those of you who’ve been watching The Oprah Winfrey Show over the last decade know that I don’t interview politicians while they’re campaigning. The question that’s been causing such a big stir … is whether or not I should break my long-standing policy and invite President Bill Clinton and Senator Bob Dole to be guests on the show. It’s [the issue] been making headlines.… I think one [newspaper] … even said ‘Oprah Bounces Bob.’ I did not—it’s just a long-standing policy.” The audience indicated they did not want her to go political.
“Maybe she realized I was too quick-witted and might steal the show,” Dole joked years later. Known for his rapier wit, he once pointed to a photo of Presidents Carter, Ford, and Nixon standing side by side at a White House ceremony. “There they are,” Dole said. “See no evil, hear no evil, and evil.” After losing to Clinton in 1996, Dole went on The Late Show with David Letterman, where the host noted that Clinton was “fat” and probably weighed “three hundred pounds.” Dole did not miss a beat. “I never tried to lift him. I just tried to beat him.”
The senator again asked to go on Oprah’s show in 2005, when he published his memoir One Soldier’s Story. “It wasn’t a political book but a story about growing up in Russell, Kansas, and serving in World War II. It’s about my wartime injuries and overcoming adversity, which I thought would appeal to her audience. The book was already a best seller, but it would have been more of a best seller had I been able to get on her show. But she wouldn’t take me because I am a Republican.”
In contrast, Donahue once gave Senator Dole a full hour, and offered a platform to politicians of both parties,