After watching the ads for the election year 1968, what really stood out to me was the difference between the ads from the two questions. From Nixon, we saw a lot more war imagery whereas, on Humphrey’s side, there were a lot more ads that attacked Nixon. I really thought that, especially in political campaigns, if one side publishes an attack ad, the other side would respond with one. I am not saying that Nixon is a great person (*cough cough* Watergate) but I do think his campaign was smart by not fighting fire with fire and retaliating to the attack ads from Humphrey’s team with attacks on Humphrey. I may be naive but I really appreciate it when people keep stuff like this clean and are polite to each other in their ads, something we didn’t see in the 2020 election.
Critical Thinking
I agree, it is really frustrating to watch campaign ads that are just attack after attack. In the 2020 election, it felt like at times the race was more about who is just not the worst candidate rather than who is bringing forth policy that is positive and noteworthy.
I agree with the idea that one side usually starts the attacks and then the other responds — I saw that a lot in the 1988 ads as with Bush and Dukakis in which Bush had many more attack ads and then Dukakis would respond. I think attack ads do take away from what you are doing and puts more attention on the other guys. It becomes more who you are not voting for vs. who you are voting for which is not ideal.
I think I agree with this, for I feel like lots of ads that focus on attacking the opponent, while they may appear convincing, often do not give any concrete information on why the candidate in question is any better. These ads that give more information, while they may not be as exciting, do allow for people to be more educated on the issues at hand.