Last week in English we were given around ten minutes to free-write about any [appropriate] topic we wanted to. Belatedly, I’ve decided to use this as an excuse to post on a topic that isn’t assigned.
Today when I was riding home from school with my dad, we listened to a recent NPR broadcast on his iPod about political campaign ads. They played ads dating back from the first televised presidential campaign ad: Ike Eisenhower’s Disney-produced cartoon jingle in 1952:
My first reaction to hearing this was incredulity that someone would actually run this for a presidential campaign. But the interesting thing is that, back then, it worked. Or at least it didn’t too much harm—Eisenhower won that year in a landslide election.
Anyways, I got to thinking about what would happen if that kind of ad was played today. I think it would go something like this:
Ad: Bush for President, Bush for President, Bush for President, Bush for President…
Viewer: …what…
Ad: You like Bush, I like Bush, everybody likes Bush (for President)
Viewer: BAAAHAHAHA!
Ad: We don’t want John or Hillary or Barack…
Viewer: Yeah OK not voting for creepy jingle man.
But in the fifties, the commercial was a success. Eisenhower’s idea of putting a political ad on TV quickly caught on. While some politicians such as Adlai Stevenson condemned the idea of political ads ("The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process."), most presidential campaigners followed his example and used the television as communication with their voters. Some worked better than others: ads such as the one that can be viewed here: http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/candidates/ad.archive/stevenson.mov were not as successful as the strategic attack ads that were later developed, such as this one: http://livingroomcandidate.movingimage.us/election/index.php?nav_action=election&nav_subaction=R&campaign_id=172
Attack ads, though often viewed as unnecessary, are effective. Possibly the most famous attack ad in campaign history doesn’t even mention the name of the candidate’s opponent—but was what some historians view as the message that was the final push that won Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 campaign. It is easy to see why the message was so effective:
It plays off of fear, and also subtly lays the blame on Johnson’s opposition, a man named Goldwater who was noted for his aggressive war tactics and wishes to use nuclear weapons in the war on Vietnam.
This ad is more similar to those played today than that first innocent, jaunty jingle ad run by Eisenhower in 1953.
A recent attack ad run by President Bush in his 2004 campaign ad against John Kerry also plays on fear:
Like the ‘Daisy Girl’ ad, this ad was successful. But this ad was also more than bit a misleading: Kerry suggested budget cuts in the 1990s, before the terrorist attacks—but he wasn’t the only one: so did some Republicans on Bush’s side.
So as you can see, as our country has developed, successful campaign ads have turned from happy jingles with parades, to atomic explosions and killing of children, to misleading attacks on opponents. We’ve gone from positive ads playing on positive things to almost threatening ads that play on fear. I’m not sure I like what that says about our country.
