On campaign trail, stage presence takes center stage

BEREA, Ohio - Twenty years ago, barnstorming on behalf of his vice president, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan came to a podium nestled in the corner of a college gym in this Cleveland suburb, with a dais of dignitaries and the rival Berea and Midpark High School bands as his backdrop.

Last week, Barack Obama spoke before a similarly sized crowd in the same gym at Baldwin-Wallace College. Obama's stage was situated on the opposite side of the room, and stationed more or less in the round, so that he would be ringed on all sides by supporters.

"It was almost 180 degrees apart," George T. Richard, a college vice president involved in planning both events, said as he surveyed the empty space four hours before Obama was scheduled to begin his town hall meeting Tuesday afternoon.

Obama's knack for telegenic stagecraft has been compared to Reagan's, but the difference in how the two positioned their podiums in Berea concerned more than feng shui. Reagan framed himself as the centerpiece in a distinctively Midwestern tableau: Three high school bands played that day, plus a jazz ensemble, and Reagan mentioned them all in his speech, along with the home-court Yellow Jackets' winning streak.

A small placard on Obama's lectern proclaiming "New Energy for America" gave the sole hint of his purpose. A huge American flag, flanked by two velour curtains in a color known as "presidential blue," covered the "Home of the Yellow Jackets" sign sitting above the scoreboard. Only an astute student of mid-century American gym architecture would be able to identify the location - part of an image of placelessness central to Obama's candidacy.

"Traditional photo ops and political strategy has to do with conveying a sense of local flavor," said Eric Hirshberg, president and creative officer of Deutsch LA, an advertising agency. "For a lot of Obama's events, they've done the opposite - they've created a stage set, a consistent look and feel. It's more about creating the impression of a force of nature that attracts people wherever he goes."

Both Obama and Republican rival John McCain are using intimate town hall settings to meet voters more frequently than prior nominees - or than Obama did during much of the primary season - according to David Grossman, chief executive of Political Productions, a Washington-based vendor that has provided lighting, sound, and staging services for presidential campaigns more than two decades.

Instead of the 4-foot-high stages used in past campaigns - a scale that "makes you feel like you're sitting in front of the stage at a major theater," said Grossman - Obama and McCain are choosing to address crowds from 2 feet off the floor. That height, considered the minimum elevation that permits clear sight lines for a standing crowd, makes the candidates appear less "elitist," said Grossman, whose firm is working for both campaigns.

Obama's staff had identified the gym in Berea, which the singer Paul Simon used in the 1980 film "One Trick Pony" as a washed-up performer playing dowdy venues, as a town hall site four days earlier, seeking a space on Cleveland's west side that could hold between 2,000 and 3,000 people.

The day before the event, campaign aides, working with volunteers and staff from Political Productions, outfitted the gym with standard Obama accoutrements. One campaign volunteer likened the process to taking a Broadway show on the road: The set is the same every night, but the theater is always a little different.

In Berea, Obama's stage was encircled within a blue-cloth "bull ring." Audience members filled seats on three sides on a first-come, first-serve basis (VIP tickets distributed by the campaign gave some early access). Campaign staff picked who would sit on the five rows of bleachers directly behind Obama's podium, managing the backdrop that cameras would capture from a riser facing him.

Each of the elements that framed Obama's stage - the candidate, a campaign slogan, the stars and stripes, and faces of supporters - would also be visible in the images captured from a riser perpendicular to the stage. In place of the "New Energy" placard, the far side of the gym was decorated with a large "Change We Can Believe In" banner; instead of a full flag, there was bunting.

Even though the media would have a choice of two perspectives - the traditional "head-on" view and the "cut" shot, initially conceived to offer different views of the candidate in profile with crowd reaction - the campaign ensured that the components of each camera shot would be the same.

They looked pretty much the same as another energy-themed event earlier that day at a high school gym in Youngstown; the only difference was that Obama stood in front of the "Change We Can Believe In" banner, without a flag.

Photographs from McCain's events do not always feature the same, repeated series of elements: The candidate is often the only person pictured - standing alone, in silhouette, before a large flag.

"We refer to it as 'the Patton look,' " said Grossman, referring to the iconic shot of George C. Scott in the movie about the World War II general. "To us, it's not very creative. That's presenting him as the war hero and senator that he is, and that's the message they want to send."

As the presumptive Republican nominee, McCain's campaign has devoted fresh attention to presenting the candidate in warmer environments. Yet the first effort was widely ridiculed: In a prime-time speech in Kenner, La., on June 3 - the night Obama clinched the Democratic nomination and spoke before supporters in the same St. Paul arena hosting the GOP convention - McCain spoke before a green wall dotted with campaign logos, alongside a bleacher of supporters.

Since then, McCain has hired staging specialists from the Bush White House, and they are turning to a Reagan strategy of using unique, local backdrops for his photo ops. He has appeared in supermarket aisles to address economic issues, and had planned to appear on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico to champion offshore drilling before the event was canceled because of bad weather.

"At that moment, McCain the candidate is making himself smaller than his subject: The location is the statement," said Hirshberg, who has informally advised Obama's campaign on advertising. "With Obama's strategy, he is always the story: The ideas are coming from the candidate."

The same day Obama spoke in Berea, McCain was a little more than 100 miles away outside a nuclear plant in southeastern Michigan, also talking about energy. He stood outdoors, surrounded by trees and water, with two cooling towers emitting plumes of vapor behind him.

"Reagan's strategy is he would stand in front of what he was talking about," said Elliott Curson, a media consultant on Reagan's 1980 campaign. "Obama is going for the podium to say what the subject is and the crowd for approval."

Sasha Issenberg can be reached at sissenberg@globe.com.