Through the library’s list of hot links, I found The Living Room Candidate: a collection of presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to 2004. Tonight I had fun watching a few from 1960, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1992 and 2004. Highlights included seeing Mamie Eisenhower campaigning for Nixon, quoting Ike’s belief that Four years isn’t enough time. Seeing people yell Four more years for Nixon in 1972. A man in a McGovern ad debating which switch to pull in the election booth. The question Which Ronald Reagan should we believe? A collage of Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy from 1960. Seeing a number of ads that claimed Democrats for X(Reagan, Nixon…). Many of the issues are the same through the ads – character, taxes, economy, health care, waffling. It is almost as if the older ads could be run again today only with a little digital editing and Photoshop help. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The Living Room Candidate
September 4th, 2004 · 2 Comments
Tags: news
2 responses so far ↓
1 Chris // Sep 4, 2004 at 6:56 am
I saw Reagan’s 84 nomination speech on CSPAN2 earlier this week. If somebody had edited in “terrorists” every time he said Russia / USSR – Bush could have repeated that speech THursday night and nobody would have noticed. It’s almost scary how little has actually changed.
2 Julie // Sep 5, 2004 at 1:36 am
Yes, I think that is what I started to wonder too while watching the commercials…especially with issues of taxes, health care and economy…have we solved any of these problems in the past ten, twenty, thirty years?