Campaign Voices

When Betsy Ames goes to work, she heads to her closet. There, in a small soundproof studio, she prepares to read words that some consultant, somewhere, e-mailed her just a moment ago. Leaning into a microphone, she clears her throat. "Our economy is in danger, gas prices are out of control," she utters smoothly and perfectly timed. Candidate X (whom we can't identify) "wants to raise taxes on American energy production, a job killer that would drive gas prices even higher … Higher taxes, higher gas prices, wrong for our economy." Candidate X, naturally, approves the message.

Who knows if it's true? Ames says it doesn't have to be. As a voice-over artist, she is one of a few dozen political narrators this time of year who are flooded with work. It's up to people like her, who read the nice or nasty things the candidates won't say themselves, to make the case for campaigns in a carefully scripted, timed and tuned way.

If you couldn't tell, it's currently high season, and the stakes are high. Ronald Reagan's famous “bear in the woods” ad in 1984 invoked enough fear in voters to pave the way to the Gipper's re-election. In 2004, a series of third-party spots criticizing John Kerry’s military record contributed to the slow deflation of his presidential hopes.

Beyond the presidential-campaign spots, the airwaves are filled with local, congressional and issue-based campaigns. Voters this season will be exposed to more than 3,000 ads, depending on where they live and the vigor of local campaigns. Lots of considerations go into the making of these messages: the text, background music, images, even the size of the font. Voters can be affected by all sorts of factors, some serious, some sublime, so sending the right message in the perfect way is a finely tuned, if hastily assembled art. But the last thing campaign consultants want ad watchers to remember is the voice trying to persuade. "I need to have someone who commands attention and who people can believe but aren't distracted by," says Fred Davis, who runs consulting firm Strategic Perception in Hollywood, Calif. "The absolute worst is someone who comes to me with a fake radio voice."

Only a few dozen voice-over artists do the majority of U.S. political ads, both in high-profile races and the ones you've never heard of. Most of them, like Ames, have been in the industry for decades and have built reputations on which high-power consultants they've worked with and how effective their ads have been (read: who won and who lost). Ames's claim to fame? Her voice narrated George W. Bush's ad in 2000 that suggested Al Goreclaimed to have invented the Internet. "There's Al Gore, reinventing himself on television again … he's claiming credit for things he didn't even do." If he invented the Internet, then, "yeah, I invented the remote control," she recited mockingly. This time around, Ames has taken jobs in smaller races—promoting or attacking candidates in congressional races. Which ones, she won't say.

With regular commercials for everyday products, money usually dictates who does which spots and how much someone's worth. But for political ones—as with anything related to politics—the industry draws clear lines of loyalty. For more than 30 years, Sheldon Smith has been one of the leading voices of Republican political advertising. For him, it was a no-brainer, considering he's been a lifelong conservative. "You need some authenticity to what you do," he says. That doesn't mean every word he speaks into the microphone in his home studio in Washington (he also has one in his vacation home in Michigan) has to be true, but he says he won't knowingly perpetuate lies. "I've walked away before. If it gives me qualms, I won't do it."

Some, like Melissa Leebaert, chose their allegiance early. She only does ads for Democrats. Over the past few weeks, she's done several spots for the Obama campaign. "I had to make a definite decision," she tells NEWSWEEK. "It's my personal leaning, and I feel very strongly about it." But other political voice artists put personal politics aside, differentiating Blue and Red candidates by who's got more green. Ames, who sticks to Republicans but won't divulge her personal politics, almost started her career doing Democrats. "[Democratic consultants] called asking me if I was available for something, and about five minutes later, the Republicans called and said, 'We have a job for you' … so that's where I stayed."

Each voice brings something different to the spots—accents, tones, pacing. Then campaign managers have to consider what gender voice they want. John Greer, a professor at Vanderbilt University who studies political advertising, says that both male and female voices can each be effective but in different ways. "In the old days, most people considered a man's voice to be more authoritative and believable, and it can be." Now, he says, more and more candidates have turned to women reading the scripts because they often have calmer and more credible voices. "A lot of voters will say to themselves, 'Well, if a nice-sounding woman is saying this to me, it must be true'."