Attack advertisements and heated debates are commonplace among today's political climate. However, that was not the case for a long time. In fact, a majority of presidential campaigns were ran with poise and respect up to Nixon.
Of course there may have been the undocumented joust at another candidate in debate, certainly between Woodrow Wilson and Hughes. However, direct attacks against another candidate were unheard of before the interests between parties grew to be so divided. One main development that led to attack ads even being possible was the TV. Because of the tv, campaign managers could quickly disseminate any dirty information about any opponent. When Kennedy ran against Nixon, it was a clear win as Kennedy held a more appealing stature and Nixon was a bit ugly. After Kennedy's death. Lyndon B. Johnson ran against Barry Goldwater running with the well known ad, the "Daisy Girl". This ad brought people to vote for him, and this changed the way campaigns would be ran henceforth.
This sense of strong imagery is observed in George H. W. Bush's campaign against Micheal Dukakis. The "Revolving Door" ad held such fearful tones that voters were nearly led to believe that they were voting for murderers if they'd vote for Dukakis. Bush then received his karma for the attacks on Dukakis, when in his second campaign Clinton held nothing back. Clinton attacked Bush's capability to be president as his presence in life and on tv was distracted and unenthused.
The history of political advertisements is not an entirely extensive one, however this trend will continue, through Donald Trumps inevitable second campaign, and through whoever from our school decides to run for president.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/avidan/2016/07/24/how-the-first-political-attack-ad-changed-politics/#268782de6b32
https://www.thebalance.com/a-brief-history-of-political-advertising-in-the-usa-38925
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/attack-ads-have-their-plus-sides/2014/08/26/c1150cd8-27eb-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html?utm_term=.7ffdb5222964
This is a very interesting post that brings to light when attack advertisements really began and how they have been able to have such a significant impact because of television. These types of advertisements utilizing the power of television were very prominent in the 2016 presidential, and I found the article below with some specific memorable examples. Just like Bush tried to portray Bill Clinton as untrustworthy in the 1992 presidential election, Trump tried to portray Hillary Clinton as untrustworthy in the 2016 presidential election. In fact, one pro-Trump advertisement even mixed clips of Bill Clinton saying that he did not lie during the Lewinski scandal and clips of Hillary Clinton saying she had been honest about her private email server. Also, in another advertisement for the 2016 election (#7 in the article), Ted Cruz used children in his advertisement to attack Trump's character, arguing that the undisciplined behavior the children were exhibiting would not be tolerated in children, so it should not be tolerated in the president. Many of the advertisements listed in this article attacked an opponent's character, rather than discussing serious political issues, similar to the advertisements used in the presidential campaigns of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton in 1992.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/2016-election-best-campaign-ads-230789
Great post Drew! Its so interesting to hear about elections and how this idea of candidate bashing became a thing. I think Brynna's comment is super funny especially in the one about Ted Cruz using his children to bash Trump, super creative and effective. One thing to look that has become a particularly big thing in the past election was candidate bashing not only from the opponent but also from other outside sources. For example SNL, in the 2016 election in particular popular late night show bashed trump in their humorous skits that aired each week. Alec Baldwin who played Trump mocks Trump showing how this candidate bashing has taken on new forms other than direct hits from opponents. If you need something funny in your free time to watch, I would highly suggest the SNL skit in which they re-inacted the first presidential debate
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nQGBZQrtT0
Great post Drew! I remember how we learned about the 70's and how the tv revolutionized American culture. In Fact it completely changed American politics as well. It began with Roosevelt's fireside chats, and progressed as the television became available to just about everybody. Now more than ever during the 60's and 70's more people were "politically educated". However the distrust and increase in malignant constant advertising as you explained has made voter turnouts decrease from the 60's until now, with exception of the 2004 and 2008 elections.
ReplyDeletehttps://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/tv-and-culture/advent-of-television-impact-politics.htm
I love commercials (whether they're political or product advertising) simply because it's really interesting to see how people can creatively convince their audience to vote for (or buy) certain things. In fact, the very first televised campaign ads were launched in the 1952 presidential race. Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower and his running mate Richard Nixon's campaign spent approximately $1.5 million on ads, twice that of their Democratic opponent Adlai Stevenson. The first series of spot ads, called "Eisonhower Answers America," featured seemingly average citizens asking laughably scripted questions, to which Eisenhower frankly responded, devoid of emotion or charisma. After that, the campaign followed up with the "I Like Ike" animation, which gave Einsenhower a major edge in the race. There's a well curated repository of presidential campaign ads in every election since 1952 that you can check out - it's called The Living Room Candidate, and it's a project of the Museum of Moving Image.
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