Political advertisement is a very specific genre of commercials. Some might even call it a separate kind of art and it would be too reckless to deny that statement. The culture of political advertisement, propaganda and campaign activities has been constantly evolving, still is and is sure to continue to do so. Campaign ads which will be analyzed in this paper are no exception. Having started with word-of-mouth advertising in the previous centuries, ideas for how to spread election campaigning materials have led to the usage of such technological breakthroughs as radio, television and internet for political purposes. And that has really become a specific art that can be analyzed like true pieces of art can.
So, the topic of this paper is to analyze and compare how presidential campaigns of Republicans and Democrats differed and differ between themselves in the course of every of the presidential campaigns in 1952, 1960, 1964, 1968 and 2012 as well as to analyze how the very essence of what is being imparted to the public through television campaign ads has evolved since the very beginning of the period under study (1952) to nowadays. What things are emphasized in ads from different époques? Did these ads use to be more or less aggressive back in 1950s towards each candidate’s opponents? Was it more important to highlight one’s own merits or to tarnish a political rival’s reputation? And what about now? What are the characteristic features of the ads from different times that underline how good a candidate is? Are there any peculiar patterns and trends either as per a certain party behaves in television ads through the years or in what touches upon the evolution of the very genre? These and other similar questions are the ones that will be analyzed in this paper.
Let’s go in chronological order and start with the election campaign of 1952. Before everything else – as it influences much the contents of television ads – a couple of things as per the then-situation have to be said. Firstly, the candidate from the Republican party was Dwight “IKE” Eisenhower whereas the candidate from the Democratic Party was Adlai Stevenson. Secondly, the United States were in quite a difficult situation at the time of election for several reasons – post-war exhaustion along with memories of the “prosperity era” under Franklin Delano Roosevelt as well as warfare in Koreas and unstable social and economic situation, especially as compared to the era of not-so-long-ago isolationism – all of this gave a good turf for both candidates to rival on.
What touches upon the very ads, the things that have to be highlighted about them (and about every subsequent campaign ads that will be analyzed here) can be split into two different planes – the “what” and “how”, meaning respectively the essence and the form of an ad that is presented.
In 1952, the common features of campaign ads, especially – again - as compared to today’s inventiveness of candidates’ administrations were relatively simplistic approach and straightforward criticism of one’s opponent as well as appraising of one’s own merits. Also, campaign ads were more modest both in their aggression and boasting respectively. So, this is the “how”. To substantiate these statements with certain example it is necessary to refer to several ads from each party. The key feature of Dwight Eisenhower’s ads is their comprehensive nature. What is meant by this is that in different advertisements he tries to highlight different problems. For instance, in one of them, presented as the candidate’s answer to a question from a woman, Dwight Eisenhower analyzes economic problems og the United States and promises to work hard in order to have those problems solved in case of his being elected. As simple as that – less than half a minute, one specific subject, only several phrases, and that’s it. To the contrary, another advertisement is more informative. The main merits of Eisenhower are enumerated there, including his participation in the World War II as well as his role in the Victory-in-Europe Day. In this very same ad he is again portrayed to be answering a question, but this time touching upon foreign policy, namely the Korean War, for the termination of which he, by the way, will later be known among other things. Finally, in the third example created in the form of a propaganda song, active constituents are portrayed in a cartoon singing a song supporting “IKE”. It is vital to notice here that this is the only among the three ads that feature some counter-propaganda, not only praising the merits and displaying support for Eisenhower, but also saying a couple of words that “Adlai goes the other way. We’ll all go with IKE.” However it should be noted at the same time that compared to the harsh criticism in modern American election campaign these words are hardly targeted at making too serious ham for the opponent, rather to make a clear distinction between right and wrong without too many details allegations.
Along with that, what touches upon the advertisements supporting Stevenson, it must be noted that his approach is more creative in “how” but less substantial in “what”. For instance, in one of the ads a woman sings expressing her love towards the “Governor of Illinois” and her respect towards how he “tells all the crooks ‘Get lost’”. This leaves a more vivid impression than ads supporting Eisenhower but speaks literally nothing about substantive political things. This probably means that it Stevenson bet on creating an image drawing much attention to it rather than on convincing constituency with solid facts and reasonable arguments. Another ad was very similar, presenting a song playing with the name of the candidate, again nothing too specific. And only in the third case a woman is portrayed explaining why she supports Stevenson. And though she speaks only about too general and amorphous explanations this is the only ad that resembles in its essence ads of Dwight Eisenhower.
1960 presidential television ads campaign is quite another pair of shoes. The approach both in “how” and “what” are felt very vividly to have evolved since 1952. Let’s start analyzing with John Fitzgerald Kennedy campaign. The first thing to be highlighted is the fact that his ads are far more substantial than those of both Eisenhower and Stevenson. What is meant by this is that in his speeches and addresses – and this is the form, by the way, which Kennedy tries to apply to the majority of his ads, instead of songs with vague contents and other failed methods – the President-to-be addresses specific social and political issues. He highlights certain problems and proposes solutions for these problems, which had been totally absent in the both parties’ campaign ads back in 1952. Kennedy speaks of global things like rivalry of communism and freedom as well as national social problems like widespread (surprisingly) malnutrition and racial inequality. At the same time, criticism of the political opponent becomes in this presidential campaign also more substantial and specific. This can be seen from some counter-propaganda ads targeted at Nixon, where Kennedy uses – again – very specific examples of Nixon’s incompetence. This speaks about two things at the same time: the role of counter-propaganda had grown in less than ten years very significantly and the very nature of criticism had become far harsher and fiercer. This matter-of-fact down-to-business approach is believed to have made a major contribution to the victory of Kennedy. Not being vague, having answers for all question (the “what”) together with a very simple, straightforward and understandable presentation (the “how”) certainly made him the one to win.
“We know what peace demands” – here is the main statement made in his campaign ads by Nixon. Literally everything else he is trying to impart in his addresses is pure pathetic speeches far from being as substantive as Kennedy’s speeches. The form of his ads is very similar to those of his opponent: these are simple speeches in front of a camera which is another clue that cartoons and songs are no longer considered serious. Along with that, notwithstanding that the “how” is as serious as the Kennedy’s one, the “what” is obviously not as robust as his opponent’s – instead of being specific (which is such a great advantage of Kennedy) he dwells on pathetic speeches and speaking about own political merits. Also, counter-propaganda played an underestimated role in his campaign.
The 1964 is yet another story. To a great extent because of the assassination of John Kennedy Lyndon Johnson is felt in his campaign ads just after a year of his acting as President of the United States to be not very much determined to make his own way in American politics though it is more a fault of his administration than of his campaign ads. “Let us continue” becomes the principal motto of his campaign showing that he lacks determination and ideas being good enough just to keep going the way Kennedy did, for him Johnson served as vice-president. On the other hand, Lyndon Johnson campaign cannot be designated as weak: the “what” in his campaign ads had an optimal proportion of emotion and specific approach and the “how” was even more diverse than the one Kennedy had had – ads included images of Johnson’s speeches in Congress, at conferences, elsewhere. Also, very powerful elements were those targeted at psychological effect of his ads. For instance the one with the voice of a kid counting petals of a flower evolving into a countdown before the explosion of an atomic bomb. This feature proves the new sense of creativity in political ads, a more mature and serious one than Eisenhower and Stevenson. As for counter-propaganda, it continued to be filled with harsh allegations and rivalry. For instance a short but full of sense video showing the same explosion with the words in the background blaming Goldwater – Johnson’s opponent – for calling nuclear weapon “just another weapon”. The frictions between parties in such laconic but meaningful ads began to rise significantly evolving from more or less harmless counter-rhetoric to the harsh accusations we can see nowadays.
The “how” and the “what” of the 1968 campaign is completely different. The Republican candidate – Nixon – in all his ads uses many images of chaos in the American life drawing attentions of Americans to the fact of violence and disorder as well as to the ones who, according to the voice in the background, is to be blamed for it. The psychological effect seems to have been very much worked on by the Republicans, just as well as counter-propaganda – it seems like never before the Democratic Party had been portrayed as negatively as during this campaign. Republicans seem to have leaned a good lesson as per how the campaign should be conducted. What touches upon Democrats, whereas the form of their ads did not change much – the same speeches and addresses – and whereas their counter-propaganda remained as powerful as earlier their pro-Democratic rhetoric became more idealistic. Democrats – and Humphrey within that number no longer focused as much on specific problems but rather on more general principles like equality and suchlike things.
Finally, trying to compare all the said above with how the campaign ads were organized in 2012 I have to say the following conclusions. First of all, the competition has become so fierce that it seems like the entire campaigns of both Obama and Romney consist of counter-propaganda. Promises to make a better life have totally given in to opposition to the “vicious opponents who got everything wrong and are about to push America to a great black whole”. Secondly, the cynicism (like in the Obama ad telling why Mitt Romney is a bad candidate and showing a widower who blames Romney for the death of his wife) has grown dramatically showing that power has become a far more precious currency than it even was back in 50’s. Thirdly, a great difference these days is that neither party seems to dwell on specific problems. The priority of counter-propaganda just does not leave any space even to make promises about solutions or even to highlight problems well. All of this in aggregate adds up to the fact that nowadays election campaigns are more of a game with cruel rules than a procedure targeted at making people’s life better.
