My favorite ad from the 2000 Presidential election between Al Gore and George Bush was Gore’s “1969” ad. http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2000
It reminded me of an elevator pitch of how he got to where he was, his track record as a politician, and what made him qualified to be president. It talked about how he didn’t want to go into politics but had to “fight for what’s right.” This positioning as a reluctant leader reminds me of some of the readings that we’ve done which say those reluctant to take power tend to succeed at it. In addition, the ad was interesting to look at because of all the pieces in it. On the living room candidate survey, this ad checked almost all of the boxes despite only being 1 minute long; every sentence brought in a new issue or point, almost to do the point of information overload. The first time I watched it, I didn’t catch every line and was more engulfed by the courageous, patriotic images and uplifting music playing in the background. This is clearly by design because even if someone is not dissecting every word or phrase, they get a feeling from Al Gore.
One thing I found particularly interesting was the similarities in messaging between Bush and Gore. In other campaigns, I saw similarities between the candidates but the messaging and core ideas were more different. In Bush and Gore’s ads, they even used the exact same phrasing and format in some of them. This makes me wonder whether such similar branding is part of what caused their election to be so close.
I also looked at the 2000 campaign and was also surprised in how similar the ads were by both parties. I think it has a lot to say about the state of the nation at the time; when there were not a lot of international affair concerns, the candidates could focus a lot more on their economic concerns for the country. I also agree their similar approaches to campaigning helps explain the closeness of the election results.
I think it is so interesting that the approaches of Bush and Gore were similar. I watched the ads by Bush for his re-election in 2004, and I did not feel that he had a similar approach to his running mate at the time, Kerry. It is surprising to see the huge difference four years can make, as most of Bush’s ads in 2004 were attacking his opponent. It seems that since then, there has been a continuing polarization between party advertisements.