(FORTUNE Magazine) – | Behind-the-scenes winners in this fall's election: the media consultants. Increasingly considered political necessities, such imagemakers typically work by exhaustively interviewing a candidate, then capturing the message on videotape. Says Republican consultant Robert Goodman: ''We live so close to the candidates' egos that every election night is a possible horror. They're asking the world to love them, and the rejection is terrible when they lose.'' At least for Goodman, this election didn't turn out so badly: Three of his five clients won. Entered in the most Senate and gubernatorial races was Squier Eskew Knapp, a firm specializing in Democrats. It had 11 winners out of 13, including Texas Governor-elect Ann Richards, who won in President Bush's adopted state. That all but two of Squier's clients were incumbents (i.e., probable shoo-ins) made its success rate slightly less dazzling. A few strikingly clever ads by local talent stole some of the big firms' thunder. In Minnesota, a takeoff on the movie Roger & Me helped Democrat Paul Wellstone unseat Senator Rudy Boschwitz. (Boschwitz was Goodman's only losing client.) North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms got a boost in his troubled bid for reelection from bareknuckle commercials by Jefferson Marketing of Raleigh. One falsely implied that opponent Harvey Gantt supported racial quotas. Academics -- and consultants themselves -- agree that few elections are decided by commercials. Says Goodman: ''I've done 120 statewide races, and there are only three or four I can point to and say, 'Aha! It was the ad!' '' Yet the choice of consultant may be crucial early in a campaign -- before the ads are made, let alone aired. Says Larry J. Sabato, professor of government at the University of Virginia: ''A candidate announces, 'I've hired so-and-so, the best in the business.' This impresses contributors, who open their wallets. It has become a sign that a candidate is serious.''

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