Great Moments in Campaign Advertising: Morning in America

“Prouder/Faster/Stronger” A Reagan/Bush ad from 1984 featuring the famous tag-line “It’s morning in America,” was one of the—if not the—most effective campaign advertisements in U.S. history. A simple message—things are better now than they were four years ago, so why change?—yet, thematically very interesting. “Morning” both symbolizes the disappearance of  the dark age of the 1970s, as well as the very real and non-symbolic message of people going to work.

IMDBish fun fact of the day: The ad was directed by John Pytka, whose brother Joe Pytka directed “Space Jam.”

Full text of the ad after the jump.

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Great Moments in Campaign History: From the South, Not For the South

In 1968 and 1972, Richard Nixon’s campaign had hedged a challenge from the racial right embodied by George Wallace by employing the so-called “Southern Strategy:” a series of policies with coded racial undertones (think “states rights” versus “civil rights”). However, Ford’s more amiable demeanor didn’t take well to that type of campaign, and with the nomination of folksy Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, he found himself against the wall in the South. While this ad only featured Strom Thurmond’s talking head saying that Carter may be from the South, but wasn’t for the South, in the context of South Carolina’s right-to-work laws, it was an pretty obvious nod to Southern segregationists that Ford may be more sympathetic to their frustrations.

Great Moments in Campaign Advertising: What has Nixon done for me?

Since you may have never seen a Hubert Humphrey advertisement. For a little background, most of Humphrey’s advertising was negative, since he was in the uncomfortable position of being the sitting vice president in a terribly unpopular administration (and had been nominated above other Democrats who were far more popular, despite winning zero primaries). So, the general aim of the campaign was the paint Nixon as out of the loop and untrustworthy.

Here, we see a tactic that pre-dated Karl Rove by decades. Nixon’s biggest strength, at least in his last run in 1960, was his experience. But, eight years out of office, and Humphrey’s campaign could paint this as a weakness: If he was so experienced, what has he ever done? However, Humphrey’s weakness, being part of the Johnson administration, which oversaw the escalation of the unpopular war in Vietnam, was too much to overcome, and Nixon won handily, enough so that George Wallace (American Independent Party) winning the South had no effect.

A Complete History of the Soviet Union Arraged to the Melody of Tetris

This is pretty bad-ass. From the YouTube description:

Buy the whole album at http://www.pigfaceboy.co.uk Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pigfaceboy

A Complete History Of The Soviet Union Through The Eyes Of A Humble Worker, Arranged To The Melody Of Tetris.

Music by “Pig With The Face Of A Boy”

Written and performed by DONALD NEWHOLM and DAN WOODS, with MALCOLM GAYNER & ROBIN HARRIS

Photographed by TIM JORDAN
Costumes by LUCY NEWHOLM
Production assistant NICOLA LINCÉ
Special thanks to JAMES LAMONT and REMY LAMONT
Produced by CHRIS LINCÉ and DAN WOODS for the ‘Musical Comedy Lab’

Directed, animated, and edited by CHRIS LINCÉ

Buy the album at http://www.pigfaceboy.co.uk

Sounds familiar…

There was a cool story in the Times yesterday celebrating the history of women’s suffrage. Definitely recommend reading it.

One part of the story really speaks to my 2010 self. Doesn’t this sound familiar?

That year (1918) the 19th Amendment passed the House. It stalled in the Senate — blocked by conservative Southerners — but Wilson muscled it through in 1919.

Great Moments in Campaign Advertising: Not truthful

From the 1996 Republican presidential primaries. Candidate Steve Forbes went on to attack the front-runner, and Bob Dole (the eventual nominee) fights back. Republicans are just better at negative advertising than anybody else.

Happy Anniversary, Women’s Suffrage!

On this day 90 years ago, Tennessee became the final state to ratify the 19th amendment, finally giving women the right to vote.  If you haven’t yet, go read Gail Collins’ excellent column last week describing the circumstances leading up to that historic vote: My Favorite August.

I was thinking about how to best celebrate this occasion, and I think it’s in the spirit of gratefulness.  Granted, that’s not my usual mood, particularly when it comes to women’s issues.  As you know from my repeated rants, being a pro-choice feminist can be frustrating.  When it comes to abortion in particular, there isn’t a lot of good news, even with the Dems in charge.  I often feel angry and disillusioned, and it seems like progress– if it happens at all– is too slow.

On the other side, I think many women of my generation feel complacent.  The women’s rights movement has achieved so much that it might seem like there’s nothing left to be done.  Never mind the myriad of ways that women still haven’t achieved equality; from the outside, it might look like feminism is over.

But let’s set aside the frustration and the complacency for a day, and thank the women (and men) who fought so hard for rights we can take for granted today, like the ability to cast a vote.  It’s kind of unbelievable that it took so long for women’s suffrage to be enacted, but it’s a testament to the tireless work of the suffragists that it happened at all.

On a personal note, I feel incredibly grateful to have so many strong female role models in my life.  I’ve had amazing teachers, friends, and coworkers.  Most importantly, I have a mother and grandmother who instilled in me from a very young age the belief that I could accomplish anything I wanted to.  They are strong, bright, passionate women who have showed me what it means to balance a successful career with a family, who have taught me the importance of fighting for what I believe in, and who have encouraged me every step of the way.

So in honor of women getting the right to vote, I encourage you all to celebrate today by thanking your favorite feminists.  Yay, suffrage!

Great Moments in Campaign Advertising: “Read My Lips”

This is the ad that, maybe more than anything else, most likely sank President George H. W. Bush’s chances for re-election. Of course, it was those tax increases that made way for years of balanced budgets under Clinton, but don’t tell anybody. And, of course, that raising the gas tax was maybe just a little before its time, not to mention a policy many progressives want to further.

But, it was a really, really effective ad. This is  exactly the script I bet the Republican nominee will use in 2012.

Great moments in campaign ad history: Nixon Now

On August 9, 1974—36 years ago today—President Richard Milhous Nixon resigned the office and went home. What a catchy tune his 1972 campaign advertisement had, though.

How the scurvy cure was lost

Over at Idle Words, a fascinating story about the history of scurvy, and how the cure, which was basically discovered in 1747, was somehow not well-known even as late as Robert Falcon Scott’s 1911 expedition to the South Pole.

Now, I had been taught in school that scurvy had been conquered in 1747, when the Scottish physician James Lind proved in one of the first controlled medical experiments that citrus fruits were an effective cure for the disease. From that point on, we were told, the Royal Navy had required a daily dose of lime juice to be mixed in with sailors’ grog, and scurvy ceased to be a problem on long ocean voyages.

But here was a Royal Navy surgeon in 1911 apparently ignorant of what caused the disease, or how to cure it. Somehow a highly-trained group of scientists at the start of the 20th century knew less about scurvy than the average sea captain in Napoleonic times. Scott left a base abundantly stocked with fresh meat, fruits, apples, and lime juice, and headed out on the ice for five months with no protection against scurvy, all the while confident he was not at risk. What happened?

A seriously interesting read.