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For the political news junkies on this board (if there are any besides me), the following message from me has only slight relevance to the 80's, but here goes...
With the U.S. Presidential Election Day only one week away, I recently found an interesting website called "The Living Room Candidate". It contains links to past Presidential campaign TV commercials, from 1952 to this year.
Some of you regulars on the 80's Rewind might remember the ones shown during the 80's: Reagan's "Morning In America" commercial, or George Bush's (senior) infamous and controversial "Willie Horton" commercial that slammed Michael Dukakis' weekend prison pass program in 1988. Or the Republican's (1980) "Democrats for Reagan" spot. Or Bush's footage of Dukakis riding around in a tank!
Personally, I prefer the ones before I became a teenager, so that would mean the 50's and the 60's. They seem more innocent (compared to more recent presidential ads) and even had some humor.
One thing I noticed, you don't see any singing or musical political ads anymore!
The 1952 and 1956 Eisenhower and Stevenson ads both look corny and cheesy by today's standards, but to me, they lack the kind of "slickness" that we see too much in today's political ads. And that makes it charming, because they are unsophisticated and it came at a time when candidates didn't feel comfortable with TV being a new way to advertise themselves.
The 60's ones grew a little more slicker, and they used fear as a political weapon, mainly because of the Cold War, and the upcoming Vietnam War. You can sense a growing tension in the following 60's ads: from John F. Kennedy's upbeat musical jingle ad (1960), Lyndon Johnson's infamous "daisy girl/nuclear bomb" ad (shown only once in 1964), Barry Goldwater's "morality" ad (1964), Nixon's surrealistic anti-Humphrey ad (1968).
The 70's ads grew increasingly bland, though one of Nixon's (1972) ads slamming George McGovern seemed to have been copied into one of George W. Bush's anti-Kerry ads. Also, Nixon's "Democrats for Nixon" effort was later copied by Reagan in 1980. Gerald Ford ran a lackluster, weak campaign in 1976 against Jimmy Carter, and Chevy Chase making fun of Ford on "Saturday Night Live" didn't help him either!
The 90's ads have been even worse, except for Ross Perot's ads in 1992.
I only wish they showed more 'third-party' ads; the Libertarian, the Green Party (especially Ralph Nader's "Priceless" ad in 2000), and Pat Buchanan's ads. They are more experimental and some were actually funny!
But for me, my favorite is Adlai Stevenson's 1952 "Ike...Bob!" commercial! They would never make a commercial like that nowadays!
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