I watched ads from the 1956 race (Eisenhower vs Stevenson). Eisenhower was running for re-election that year, and his ads interestingly didn’t attack Stevenson at all. Stevenson’s ads, on the other hand, almost all included some reference to how Eisenhower hadn’t delivered on all of his promises during his first term. I wonder if Eisenhower’s refrain from attack ads has to do with the limited information that voters had back then (compared to the present day). Stevenson could very easily point to Eisenhower’s track record, but because the former hadn’t held presidential office, he had less of a reputation. Less people were familiar with the results of his policies, and therefore there was less about him available to effectively attack.

My favorite ad is one from Stevenson’s campaign. The ad is about 4 minutes long, and features a monologue from Stevenson, from his home in Illinois. The monologue takes up several minutes, and is all done in one take (there are no cuts or editing). Stevenson speaks well, but there are moments where you can tell he briefly forgot what he was going to say, or stumbled over a word or two. It also appears that he is giving the speech from memory, rather than reading from some kind of teleprompter. In a way, this ad is refreshing because it doesn’t seem as contrived and scripted as the campaign ads that I’m used to seeing. It feels like a human is talking to you, as opposed to an image or idea being marketed to you.