“Stripes” 1996 – Dole

This ad was sponsored by Candidate Dole, the Republican candidate running against President Clinton.  The entire ad was an attack ad – there was no substance or references to policy or political work.  The ad explained how Clinton was facing criminal charges, and Clinton defended that he is “active duty”; therefore, his hearing would be postponed, according to some act.  The whole point of the ad was the challenge and bring into question Clinton’s character, as the voice-over ended the commercial with, “Bill Clinton, he’s really something”.  It was almost more comical than serious, even if the contents of the commercial were true – it came off as more of a joke than an accusation or questioning of character.

“Surgeon” 1996 – Clinton

This ad was put out by the Democratic party to support President Clinton.  It shows multiple children saying what they wanted to be when they grew up, followed by a clip of Dole claiming he wanted to get rid of the Department of Defense.  This ad was really interesting to me because it made me wonder how much these candidates manipulate children to appeal to the emotion of viewers.  Clinton ran on the promise for a college tax credit and credit toward tuitions.  The commercial ends by claiming that Clinton is going to build a bridge to the 21st century, and it makes me wonder about these policies in today’s discussions of elections.

YES WE CAN – New Approaches

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsV2O4fCgjk

I personally liked the “Yes we can” presidential campaign commercial from the Obamas 2008 campaign. The video takes multimedia, collage approach which combines clips of celebrities singing, acting, or dancing along with an uplifting speech given by Obama. I like this commercial because for several reasons. One reason is that it draws special attention and emphasis to his message, a powerful message at that. The commercial showcases his words as a powerful art, as well known faces copy his expressions along with a video recording of one of his speeches. I also like how the commercial showcases some of his followers (the celebrities) and their demographic differences. Something I really like about this commercial along with another one of Obama’s campaign commercials (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiB-Fs9HdyE) was how clear and straight forward he is in his plans and how to execute them. He clearly states problems and the start of their solutions. In this second commercial, it is a clear portrait of him, in a well-lit room. His language is clear, his tone is bold and reliable, and his message is reliable and honest.

In addition, there were three commercials from the Johnson 1964 campaign that I was not fond of… titled “Peace Little Girl (Daisy)” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ynEiRvxazU), “Ice cream” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAn6w2CNII0), and “Mother and Child” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUO0PqJMsTg). These commercials manipulate the audience and play solely on fear. While nuclear warfare was at the forefront of the American public’s minds and they all desired protection, his commercials do not show his identity or offer solutions… they just show a little girl eating icecream, plucking flower petals, and a mother and child walking in a field with a balloon- all followed by ominously saying that “the stakes are too high for you to stay home”. There is no hint at a solution or any other policies or values that he stands for. All the victims in his commercials are also females or little girls… I know this is from over 70 years ago but I still… cmonnnn

The political commercial I watched was one titled ‘2.2 trillion dollars,’ an attack ad the Bush administration released on Al Gore’s proposed spending. On the side of the ad, the website described how many core issues for the election regarded issues within the homefront. This included fiscal issues such as the economy and taxes, education budgets, and the future of social security. In this ad, Bush, the Republican nominee, aimed to attack his Democratic opponent Al Gore for proposing projects that will cost too much money. The ad is very minimalist by design, it starts with a white screen and has the voiceover of a man spurring statistics that come up on the screen. The statistics describe the expected surplus for the U.S. economy over the coming decade, and how Gore’s spending model will surpass that surplus and put the country back into a deficit. The ad ends with “Al Gore’s big government spending plan threatens America’s prosperity.”

I thought this was a very interesting commercial as it was unlike any political campaign commercials I have seen before. I found it really interesting how the ad never once showed George Bush’s face or Al Gore’s. Typically when I think of attack ads, I think of a lot of pictures that depict the opponent in a negative light with drastic statistics about them or their previous work. On the other hand, this approach is very simplistic by using a monotone computerized voice with no accompanying music and no visual aids. Reading the summary of the election on the side, it makes me question if candidates revert to more drastic campaign commercials when the country is in a higher stress period of time. It stated how international affairs were not a primary concern of this election, and that the economy was back into a surplus after being in a deficit in years prior. Therefore, a lot of the concerns would be to what extent new government programs should be expanded in this time of a surplus, so it makes sense that the Republican nominee would attack the Democratic nominee for wanting to expand the government role too much and threaten the economy to go back into a deficit. I think it was a very interesting activity to analyze these commercials and learn how strategies can differ in political ads versus product ads.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2000/22-trillion#4171

After watching the republican ads from 2004, my favorite is the “John Kerry, International Man of Mystery” ad. It is not my favorite because it is necessarily effective, but because it is pretty ridiculous. The ad is an attack add framing democratic candidate John Kerry to be seem unintelligent and unable to stick to one story. It uses a bright, very early 2000s edit emphasize that Kerry is “ridiculous” in what he says. It bounces back from clips of Kerry to shots of large bubble letters, saying words like “Oh really?” and “wow!” in and obviously sarcastic manner. It is called man of mystery because it portrays Kerry as an uniformed and secretive candidate, thus making him incompetent. This is what the ad wants us to believe. However, there is a lot of information missing. Every clip of Kerry is short, and when statements are taken out of context it is easily to paint them negatively, though that might not be an accurate representation. It invokes and immediate reaction from the viewer.

An ad that was more serious and more effective was the one entitled “Tell the Truth.” It begins with a clip of Kerry saying he would never use a negative ad then goes on to show a montage of negative ads apparently funded by him as well as money that his organization has spent on them. A view who does not consider the information of the ad carefully would get the sense that Kerry is untrustworthy, which is exactly what the ad is trying to get across. However, the definition of “negative” ad seems to be a little loose based on the short clips they showed, and this would inflate the numbers. Also, the clip of Kerry is again taken out of context which distorts the story. It is ironic that Bush would bash Kerry for using negative ads at all because 17 of the 20 republican ads were attack ads.

Overall, it was very interesting to watch these ads with the advantage of 16 years. A lot of the promises made, and the fear mongering used no longer applies. In the first ad I watched, Bush talks about the “dot com bust” implying that the internet market crashed. I was too young at the time to have experienced the social context that he was talking about, but it is interesting because the internet and internet investments are thriving. One of them mentioned record home ownership, which we now know 2008 crash of the market was caused by irresponsible lending to buy homes. The ads seemed over the top to me, but were apparently effective as Bush was re-elected.

This advertisement had very little content that actually related to the 2012 presidential election. It focused on Mitt Romney’s promise to cut funding for PBS, which produces Sesame Street. Romney would always reference the character Big Bird when making that promise, so Obama’s team took those sound bites and put together an ad making fun of Romney’s focus on Big Bird.

This accomplished two things. First, it showed the difference between Romney and Obama on funding PBS. Romney wanted to cut funding; Obama did not. But I’m more importantly, it showed that Mitt Romney was out of touch. Instead of focusing on issues like healthcare and education that are more prevalent, he was focused on Big Bird. The ad itself was very cleverly edited to grab your attention and make Romney look foolish.

Out of the Democratic and Republican advertisements I watched in favor of opponents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson, my favorite was an advertisement called “Women Votes” that was in support of Eisenhower. When looking at all the advertisements, I typically looked for ones that covered a wide variety of topics and did not attack the other opponent, because I believe attack ads are unnecessary if you have enough of a personal platform to stand on. For the “Women Votes” ad, it first empowers the U.S. female population by letting them know they hold the majority vote in these presidential elections, because they belong to the larger population. It lists a few other reasons why women specifically should vote for Eisenhower, but then also fans into a row of interviews on different women giving their personal reason for why they will vote for Eisenhower.

Through the strategy of including numerous interviews of different women, that was also seen in another Eisenhower ad with just different civilians, the advertisement has the ability to include numerous platforms and reasons for why Eisenhower, or the candidate they are supporting, would be a better President. Through the stream of women, there was talk of family, education, powerful leadership, unity, taxes, social security, prosperity, and honesty. The list of advantages in voting for Eisenhower was able to be so long in this ad because they included upwards of a dozen different women giving their opinion on why they would vote for the Republican candidate. I believe advertisements that get the true opinion of the people and can touch upon a large number of advantages and platforms are the best for a presidential candidate, which is why the “Women Votes” advertisement was my favorite from the 1956 campaign.

When looking at recent presidential elections, the 2008 election stands out to me. Obama and McCain were both considered outsiders in their own ways. Obama was young and generally new to politics and McCain was considered a maverick, not always following party lines when voting. I appreciate this ad, “Broken” in support of McCain because it calls out this outsider position of McCain, which I believe was one of his stronger personal attributes.

Additionally, the ad functions as a form of attack ad. Rather than attacking Obama, it is attacking corruption with government. Which, in turn, is attacking the current political system and politicians in general. I like this twist on a typical attack ad because it is finding a common enemy and using it as a way to promote characteristics about yourself while not attacking your opponent who shares many of those same characteristics.

Further, a lot the aspects that McCain points out as having corruption (the prior administration (Bush), big oil, Wall Street) tend to have direct or indirect ties to the Republican party. In pointing out the corruption in them, the American people can see how McCain would work on both sides of the aisle. He is not bound to the ideologies or interests of the Republican party despite being their nominee. I believe that emphasizing this works well in relating to the electorate because many Americans do not fit neatly into one political party over the other. As the political system gets more polarized in the United States, those individuals have less politicians that they can identify with. McCain gave them a politician to put their trust into. In doing so, the ad successfully playing into American ideals of freedom through putting America first before any political party.

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.

This is one of McCains commercials that is fighting Obama’s stance on education. It is talking about how Obama’s only accomplishment in the education area is teaching kindergartners about sex. With the last article that we read on skewing stats, I want to know where they got that information. Though I agree that teaching kids that young about sex may be a little premature, I think that the sex education system needs to be overhauled and updated. This was my favorite ad because I felt like it really had no substance to it. I mentioned in the last blog post how I tend to prefer the funny ads, I thought this ad was almost laughable. It said nothing besides that Obama is bad. I understand that that tends to be the point of the opposition ad campaign, but I thought this one was more empty than a lot of the other ones I watched.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2008

This commercial, “Formally titled “Peace, Little Girl,” but more commonly known as the “Daisy” ad, this famous political, commercial was produced primarily by Tony Schwartz for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 campaign against Barry Goldwater.”  This is not my favorite ad in the sense of genuinely liking it, but in a sense of a strange curiosity of the fear mongering that was rampant in the 1960’s. This ad was made with the intention of fear mongering citizens into voting for Johnson with a simple slogan of ” we must either love each other or die”. This enormous oversimplification of what was happening at the time was to create a sense of pressure in the American Citizen to vote for Johnson. It is so interesting the enormous juxtaposition of innocence and extreme fear with the young girl and the explosion. I find the commercial a fascinating example of fear mongering.