It's Morning in America

I think most people could see this one coming in a blog post from a mile away; but afterwards I promise to include (now anachronistically - as we passed this election in class awhile ago) what I consider to be among the most baller political ads.

1984 - Reagan's influential ad, entitled "Prouder, Stronger, Better", better known as 'Morning in America', tried to evoke the sentimentality and patriotism in Americans in regards to their satisfaction over the changes that the country underwent during Reagan's first term. The fact that Reagan isn't mentioned at all until the last few seconds really highlights how his campaigning tried to associate the 1980s' (questionable) success - culturally, politically, economically, and socially - with the Reagan presidency. It's very much overly optimistic, which was a common theme in Reagan's communication with the American public. 

And now for an ad that I only just saw for the first time a few days ago. Seriously, it's amazing. It's a 1968 Hubert Humphrey ad that mocks Nixon's selection of Agnew as his running mate. If you log onto livingroomcandidate.org [new window] , you can watch ads that ran during elections back to 1952 & learn a bit of background on them - such as how this ad was actually created by the same guy who created the infamous 'Daisy' ad 4 years earlier. It's ads like this that make me happy.