See the 'Willie Horton' ad here:

[Julien Sorel]

Some old political commercials

You can see some of the really famous ones -- Dukakis riding the tank around; LBJ's 'Daisy' commercial that, if memory serves, did in an otherwise good Goldwater campaign; the infamous 'Willie Horton' ad; and Reagan's 'Morning In America' commercial which, at the time made me absolutely sick to the stomach, but now I have to admit is one of the best political ads I've ever seen. The site has a good cross-section of commercials.

I think Bush is going to try a combination of the 'Morning In America' ones, and the Reagan bear ads -- he needs to scare people, and try to convince them that things are better than they are at the same time. and he has the money to really pour that crap on.

You need Quicktime to view the ads; get it here.

Finally, if anyone knows of another site with similar ads, please let me know. I absolutely love this stuff.

[sistersofmercy]

1. Ppl should be reminded of the willie horton ads, papa bush used

racism to win the election. Never forget, don't let it happen again!

[Yupster]

4. But remember,

the Willie Horton ad was not a Bush ad. It was third party political action committee ad. If you look at it, you'll see right at the beginning the name of the PAC.

There was also a Bush campaign ad on the same subject. It didn't show Horton's picture. Instead it showed about five guys (1 black, 4 white) walking endlessly around a turnstile while the voice-over talks about letting first degree murderers out on weekend passes after the juries said life.

The funniest one was the bear in the woods ad. I heard Ed Rollins or one of the Reagan guys on C-Span a long time ago talking about that ad. They said they were worried about it because it was so symbolic, but when they did focus groups it got universal approval. Many people saw the point that the bear was Russia and Reagan was saying to be strong. He said that most people didn't understand the symbolism of who was what, but those people thought the ad was even better, They thought it was about protecting the environment and being nice to animals, so they ran with the ad.

Gotta say though that the Johnson one was by far the worst. Basically elect oldwater and he'll blow up the world.

[Julien Sorel]

2. Boot, for my fellow political junkies.

[ButterflyBlood]

3. How the hell is Bush going to do "Morning in America"?

There is nothing about the country better that he can brag about.

[Yupster]

5. It's darkest before the dawn?

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

[Julien Sorel]

6. He lies.

It's called dishonest marketing.

Find whatever positives there are, and keep repeating them until people believe things really are better, or they are going to get better. It also might convince people Bush is some kind of optimist -- people loved Reagan for that, his mindless optimism.

The same type of saturation campaign worked for Iraq, so it isn't as if these guys don't know how to do it.


I also remember Reagan, during the '82 midterms when the economy absolutely sucked, running around doing speeches with the theme 'stay the course,' ie, yes, things suck, but we're going to turn the corner. I think it was credited with cutting some Republican losses that year. Bush isn't Reagan, though...