Fred Greenstein was flipping through the television channels yesterday when he stopped and stared. There he was. Staring back.
The Princeton politics professor had just returned from a panel discussion with C-SPAN held in Washington, D.C. He would have only hours before New Jersey Network 9 pulled into his driveway and set up cameras in his living room for a live interview with the station's anchor.
With the concession and acceptance speeches from the 2000 presidential candidates broadcast last night, one of the most bizarre elections in American history came to a startlingly graceful close.
And with it came the end of a furious period of requests for Greenstein to appear as a political pundit, offering his observations on the process and consequences of the election.
"I've been doing so many of these things during this period," said Greenstein in his darkened living room, as the cameraman coiled the brightly colored wires and the producer shifted the furniture back to its original position following last night's broadcast.
"I've sometimes had as many as six interviews in one day. Suddenly there's a feeding frenzy for people to comment," Greenstein said. "Of course, if you give an interview and it gets picked up on the wires, that triggers other things. Some of these responses are precoded in my head. It's a little like lectures and professors. You poke them and they start speaking."
As NJN was setting up for the interview, a milk crate sat in a corner of the living room, filled with wires and equipment. A huge camera transmitting a live feed was stationed behind the lightly colored couch.
Though it all may have seemed out of place in Greenstein's quiet book-lined room, filled by a piano, lamps and a potted plant, for the politics professor it was nothing new.
Before the interview started, he began slowly buttoning up his shirt — on the advice of his wife, Barbara, who cautioned him against letting his undershirt show. But the producer hurried over and began fixing it for him.
Greenstein raised his eyebrows and smiled.
"One second, we're going to hook him up now!" the producer called.
"Mike, we're hooking him up," the cameraman said.
"Professor, like I said, just stick that in as much as you dare," the producer continued, fiddling with Greenstein's ear piece. "Is that comfortable?"
"It's fine," he said, frowning slightly.
"Mike, we'll be talking to you in a second."
"Sounds familiar . . . Yes I hear you, Mike." Greenstein squinted. "Right . . . hmm . . . exactly."
He turned to the visitors in the room and grinned.
"I'm not hallucinating, there's a voice in there."
After the interview — which lasted several minutes — Greenstein's face broke into a huge smile.
"It's like having office hours," he said. "Students come in. You talk to them. It's energizing. It pumps me up."
Wise man
Greenstein came to Princeton in 1973 to study how to combine psychology with politics, with an emphasis on the presidency.
And since, he has embraced his role as a pundit.
During the election coverage, Greenstein has given interviews to news organization ranging from The New York Times to Australian radio stations.
"It's really kind of like teaching," he said. "There's teaching in the classroom, teaching through writing, talking to alumni and by teaching by talking with anchors, it's outreach."
And he has shown some of his interviews to his classes.
"That freaks the students out," he said. "There's one where a book of mine is being criticized by a very distinguished historian, so that's particularly — it sort of perks them up."
At his health club, people who previously just nodded will now come up and say hello, offering commentary on his performances. On the club bulletin board, someone posted an article profiling him in the New Jersey section of The New York Times.
When he went to get his eye glasses adjusted, his opthalmologist had seen one of his television appearances.
"His response was that my glasses looked great," Greenstein said.
To prepare for his appearance on NJN, he watched Vice President Al Gore and now President-elect George W. Bush's speeches last night and listened to other commentators.
"I would say there were very classy performances," he said. "You saw politicians tripping all over themselves to get on Larry King and talk about how they're going to make the system work. It would be ironic if people get more out of this really messed up election than they did of some others —"
The phone rang. It was his daughter.
"She couldn't find the channel!" Greenstein yelled to his wife. He turned to the phone, laughing. "I thought you were more competent than that."
Greenstein's daughter may not have seen him on television. But during the last two months, the rest of America has.
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