Full Version: Historical Presidential Campaigns
The Living Room Candidate shows some of the political ads used on television from 1952 – present. Through the evolution of technology there are some very apparent difference between the ads of the past and the ads of today, but have they really changed, in content and message? As this is a cool site and I fear (pun intended) everyone staying up all night viewing the different ads, I would like to focus this debate on one of the types of commercials listed, fear.
Questions for debate:
1. Has fear really been an effective tool in campaigning?
2. Has one candidate done a better job (historically) at provoking fear? Do you think they won/lost because of its use?
3. How are the current campaigns using fear in comparision to previous campaigns?
**this site gives thumbnails of various ads on the left hand side, you can see some more if you click on the related Commercials drop down box.**
Questions for debate:
1. Has fear really been an effective tool in campaigning?
2. Has one candidate done a better job (historically) at provoking fear? Do you think they won/lost because of its use?
3. How are the current campaigns using fear in comparision to previous campaigns?
**this site gives thumbnails of various ads on the left hand side, you can see some more if you click on the related Commercials drop down box.**
1. Has fear really been an effective tool in campaigning?
Only if people were afraid to begin with.
Listen, people vote for the person who resonates best with what you're feeling. Are you feeling anxious about the economy? Your job? A terrorist threat? Do you feel everything is going great? Is it going terrible, but you'd like to stop hearing about it?
Whatever candidate best reflects how you feel is the one you're going to vote for.
Politicians cannot create fear strong enough to make you vote for them. But a candidate can play to your existing fears and tell you that voting for him/her will help make those fears go away.
3. How are the current campaigns using fear in comparision to previous campaigns?
Both candidates are currently using fear to motivate voters. Bush is used the so-called "War On Terror"; Kerry is using "Bush Could Have Four More Years to Do More Damage".
I think that this campaign is seeing more use of fear, because of all the lingering uncertainty with terrorism and the economy. It's what the voters are feeling now, so they're playing to those fears. If everything were great, fear isn't as useful.
Only if people were afraid to begin with.
Listen, people vote for the person who resonates best with what you're feeling. Are you feeling anxious about the economy? Your job? A terrorist threat? Do you feel everything is going great? Is it going terrible, but you'd like to stop hearing about it?
Whatever candidate best reflects how you feel is the one you're going to vote for.
Politicians cannot create fear strong enough to make you vote for them. But a candidate can play to your existing fears and tell you that voting for him/her will help make those fears go away.
3. How are the current campaigns using fear in comparision to previous campaigns?
Both candidates are currently using fear to motivate voters. Bush is used the so-called "War On Terror"; Kerry is using "Bush Could Have Four More Years to Do More Damage".
I think that this campaign is seeing more use of fear, because of all the lingering uncertainty with terrorism and the economy. It's what the voters are feeling now, so they're playing to those fears. If everything were great, fear isn't as useful.
QUOTE(DreamPipEr @ Jul 22 2004, 04:15 PM)
Questions for debate:
1. Has fear really been an effective tool in campaigning?
Yes I believe it is a very effective tool.
QUOTE
2. Has one candidate done a better job (historically) at provoking fear? Do you think they won/lost because of its use?
I find the Johnson ads as well as the Reagan ad to be the most effective. Since Johnson won a full term after his first half a term and Reagan won 2 terms well it doesn't appear that the advertisements hurt them. Please refer to Reagan's "Bear" and Johnson's "Peace little Girl" and what I found Frightening like Twilight Zone goes Pedophile frightening was Johnson's "Ice Cream" jeese I felt like I needed a shower after that one. QUOTE
3. How are the current campaigns using fear in comparison to previous campaigns?
Compared to the above noted as well as a few more the present ads seem more like documentaries, which is a very strange comparison for me. As an over all trend it appears that we have shied away from historical fear mongering. The way I see it, it is human nature to fear something, be it terrorist, financial ruin, health issues, we all have fears. I wouldn't want the candidates not to address those fears as they wouldn't be doing their jobs as candidates for President. It is sort of a Catch 22 is he a fear Monger or is he a responsible leader. Looking at the history of these sorts of campaign ads, what I have seen lately has been very tame.
edited due to my itchy clicky finger
Extremely cool site - I ended up watching just about all of the campaign advertisements. It's great that the museum put such a conveniently web-accessible record of these together.
1. Has fear really been an effective tool in campaigning?
I think it's quite likely. Seeing the ads make you stop and think, and wonder, what the effects of these commercials were. To me, they come across extremely biased, presenting only one side of view; for the uninformed and undereducated voter, the campaigns were making maximum use of fear.
2. Has one candidate done a better job (historically) at provoking fear?
I don't really know. To feel grounded in an answer, I think I'd want to see some sort of polling or historical data showing what people's opinions were to the commercial (before and after viewing), and if their position changed in reaction to what they saw. I really don't remember any of my reactions from seeing these ads when I was younger (I wasn't born until 1969). I think fear definitely played a part, however, in some candidates leveraging it more effectively than others. And it almost seems like an ad based in fear without accurately showing both sides of the story is really something more akin to disinformation.
As an aside, this thread reminds me about how political disinformation campaigns go way back, and have been with us since the very beginning. I remember being told in political science classes that in early elections in the United States, a common tactic was to have people falsely spread the rumor in rural parts of the country just weeks or days before the election that the candidate they favored had died. Apparently, since news traveled slowly and might take days or weeks to reach its destination, a coordinated effort such as this could convince a significant number of gullible people that they might as well not bother to vote on election day, because their candidate was dead. Later, when technology made news quickly and readily available, the tactic died out, but we see that the information age brought new ways to spread disinformation to the uniformed, and to scare them with imagery and soundbites designed to elicit our fears.
3. How are the current campaigns using fear in comparision to previous campaigns?
I think it's more subtle this time around, unless anyone can point out a current campaign fear advertisement on par with some of the gems at the museum site. Which gives us a little perspective on how maybe things aren't so bad with this election?
I wonder if the Internet has anything to do with this; that although the campaigns could run fear-based attack ads, information both for and against the facts of the given ad attack in question circulate quickly.
1. Has fear really been an effective tool in campaigning?
I think it's quite likely. Seeing the ads make you stop and think, and wonder, what the effects of these commercials were. To me, they come across extremely biased, presenting only one side of view; for the uninformed and undereducated voter, the campaigns were making maximum use of fear.
2. Has one candidate done a better job (historically) at provoking fear?
I don't really know. To feel grounded in an answer, I think I'd want to see some sort of polling or historical data showing what people's opinions were to the commercial (before and after viewing), and if their position changed in reaction to what they saw. I really don't remember any of my reactions from seeing these ads when I was younger (I wasn't born until 1969). I think fear definitely played a part, however, in some candidates leveraging it more effectively than others. And it almost seems like an ad based in fear without accurately showing both sides of the story is really something more akin to disinformation.
As an aside, this thread reminds me about how political disinformation campaigns go way back, and have been with us since the very beginning. I remember being told in political science classes that in early elections in the United States, a common tactic was to have people falsely spread the rumor in rural parts of the country just weeks or days before the election that the candidate they favored had died. Apparently, since news traveled slowly and might take days or weeks to reach its destination, a coordinated effort such as this could convince a significant number of gullible people that they might as well not bother to vote on election day, because their candidate was dead. Later, when technology made news quickly and readily available, the tactic died out, but we see that the information age brought new ways to spread disinformation to the uniformed, and to scare them with imagery and soundbites designed to elicit our fears.
3. How are the current campaigns using fear in comparision to previous campaigns?
I think it's more subtle this time around, unless anyone can point out a current campaign fear advertisement on par with some of the gems at the museum site. Which gives us a little perspective on how maybe things aren't so bad with this election?
I wonder if the Internet has anything to do with this; that although the campaigns could run fear-based attack ads, information both for and against the facts of the given ad attack in question circulate quickly.
1. Has fear really been an effective tool in campaigning?
You don’t think that powerful images, such as the ones Johnson used can help shape the fear? Perhaps the fear was already there but latent. After viewing the ad it made it active. Remember fear isn’t just about what they will do to us it is also about what will happen if someone else gets (stays) in office. It is about taking a voter who may be less inclined to care and start thinking that they better get out there and vote. So I do believe that the use of fear is an effective tool.
2. Has one candidate done a better job (historically) at provoking fear?
I would give Johnson the “King” title for use of fear. Hubert Humphrey used effective fear provoking imagery (Bomb) but was not successful in winning the election. Reagan's "Bear" ad was just brilliant advertising and imagery!
Azure, I tried to see if there were any studies out there and couldn't find any. It would be cool if that sort of study was done.
3. How are the current campaigns using fear in comparison to previous campaigns?
I don’t see the candidates using fear as much as I see the backdoor advertising using fear and pretty effectively. Kerry has move on org campaigning with lots of fear and imagery (like comparing Bush to Hitler) or Bush in 30 seconds. Bush is starting to chime in through the Americans Voter Fund with “What If”.
Shadow Campaigns
So on face value the current campaigns are maintaining a relatively mild form of the use of fear (Bush is using it a little more in his “actual” advertisements but when we look at the Special Interest Groups the Kerry campaign seems to be in the lead not just creating fear against Bush but also the fear of another 4 years of Bush if you vote (your conscience) Nader (Jay Hardin ad, National Progress Fund). On the same link above. Since these ads are not tagged with "This is (insert candidate name here) and I approve this message they are not technically accountable for the use of fear but that doesn't mean that isn't being used.
With that said I think in this campaign we are seeing historical use of fear. The jury will be out on how far each party will go till the big day!
Yes with Fact Check it is much more difficult. I just wonder how many people are checking here when they see one of these ads.
edit to add thought..
QUOTE(amf)
Only if people were afraid to begin with.
Listen, people vote for the person who resonates best with what you're feeling. Are you feeling anxious about the economy? Your job? A terrorist threat? Do you feel everything is going great? Is it going terrible, but you'd like to stop hearing about it?
Whatever candidate best reflects how you feel is the one you're going to vote for.
Politicians cannot create fear strong enough to make you vote for them. But a candidate can play to your existing fears and tell you that voting for him/her will help make those fears go away.
Listen, people vote for the person who resonates best with what you're feeling. Are you feeling anxious about the economy? Your job? A terrorist threat? Do you feel everything is going great? Is it going terrible, but you'd like to stop hearing about it?
Whatever candidate best reflects how you feel is the one you're going to vote for.
Politicians cannot create fear strong enough to make you vote for them. But a candidate can play to your existing fears and tell you that voting for him/her will help make those fears go away.
You don’t think that powerful images, such as the ones Johnson used can help shape the fear? Perhaps the fear was already there but latent. After viewing the ad it made it active. Remember fear isn’t just about what they will do to us it is also about what will happen if someone else gets (stays) in office. It is about taking a voter who may be less inclined to care and start thinking that they better get out there and vote. So I do believe that the use of fear is an effective tool.
2. Has one candidate done a better job (historically) at provoking fear?
I would give Johnson the “King” title for use of fear. Hubert Humphrey used effective fear provoking imagery (Bomb) but was not successful in winning the election. Reagan's "Bear" ad was just brilliant advertising and imagery!
Azure, I tried to see if there were any studies out there and couldn't find any. It would be cool if that sort of study was done.
3. How are the current campaigns using fear in comparison to previous campaigns?
I don’t see the candidates using fear as much as I see the backdoor advertising using fear and pretty effectively. Kerry has move on org campaigning with lots of fear and imagery (like comparing Bush to Hitler) or Bush in 30 seconds. Bush is starting to chime in through the Americans Voter Fund with “What If”.
Shadow Campaigns
So on face value the current campaigns are maintaining a relatively mild form of the use of fear (Bush is using it a little more in his “actual” advertisements but when we look at the Special Interest Groups the Kerry campaign seems to be in the lead not just creating fear against Bush but also the fear of another 4 years of Bush if you vote (your conscience) Nader (Jay Hardin ad, National Progress Fund). On the same link above. Since these ads are not tagged with "This is (insert candidate name here) and I approve this message they are not technically accountable for the use of fear but that doesn't mean that isn't being used.
With that said I think in this campaign we are seeing historical use of fear. The jury will be out on how far each party will go till the big day!
QUOTE(Azure Citzent)
I wonder if the Internet has anything to do with this; that although the campaigns could run fear-based attack ads, information both for and against the facts of the given ad attack in question circulate quickly.
Yes with Fact Check it is much more difficult. I just wonder how many people are checking here when they see one of these ads.
edit to add thought..
This is an excellent website! Good find. I remember the ads in 1964 that LBJ used against Goldwater and they did scare the hell out of people. "Barry Goldwater will get us into a nuclear war" was the message and it was a highly effective message. By that standard, most of the ads today are quite tame.
I haven't seen any studies per se, but I have heard quite a few political campaign experts from all sides say that negative campaigning does indeed work. Most commercial advertising people will tell you that "counter ads" that are done correctly, usually with a sense of humor are also highly effective.
I haven't seen any studies per se, but I have heard quite a few political campaign experts from all sides say that negative campaigning does indeed work. Most commercial advertising people will tell you that "counter ads" that are done correctly, usually with a sense of humor are also highly effective.
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