In my last post, I referred to "fear ads" and their failure to win elections... and I wanted to reference some of those ads. So, I went searching on the web and I found THIS SITE.
Wow... a fantastic resource for historic national election ads!
For some of what I wanted to reference, try this one on for size:
Go to 1984, and click on the Mondale ad titled "Arms Control 5" at the end of the list for Mondale. Its a 4 minute plus ad, but nothing does a better job of showing how fear-mongering fails to win elections (if it needs to be demonstrated at all, that is). In it, Mondale actually refers to his vast "international relations experience" and calls the Soviets "our friends". Yep... our friends.
Now, I want to be fair and balanced by saying that there are examples of such ads that did (seemingly) work... and the 1964 "Daisy Girl" ad by LBJ against Goldwater is a pretty good example. There isn't a lot of question about where the message is going in that ad... Goldwater is an extremist that cannot be trusted with America's nuclear future. Good stuff.
Looking at some of the old ads really takes you back... I remember most of the ads from the 1980 campaigns, and even some of the '76 ads... tough to campare them to what we see today. However, the Liberty Park ad for Reagan in 1980 was a biggy, as was the Morning in America campaign four years later.
It's a good site... check it out and see what worked and what didn't, and tell me you don't see parallels between the modern liberal ads and those used by Reagan in 80-84.
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