As I watched all of the Eisenhower campaign ads, the notion of the family man who was a brilliant and strong general is reinforced through every means possible. The ads portray a man who is quick but decisive and can make decisions that will be wise but also morally strong. With the Korean War being fought at this time, the people of the United States were looking for a leader that was familiar with war but would also bring the men who the constituents loved home, so that they could be with their family. The point that Eisenhower was trying to get across was that he had the knowledge and experience of battle and could bring a peaceful ending to the war. One of Eisenhower's ads has a black male asking him a question and Eisenhower has a response that is summarized to say that the American people are facing all kinds of problems and that life isn't as good as people lie about. By posing and answering this question, Eisenhower tries to show the people that he recognizes the problems and will not just look over them hoping that they will go away over time. With the cheerful chants of "Ike", I also noticed that this catchy song hooked the viewer and made it almost seem as if the viewer would be happy like the song if they voted for Ike.
For the first clip for Stevenson, the reader is drawn in by an attractive woman singing. This tactic was used to show women that other women had an interest in Stevenson and this add lured men into watching it because the woman has a low cut dress on. The image of a housewife saying that Stevenson would be good is reinforcing the notion of the wives at home helpfully suggesting to their husbands what would be good for them, just as all mothers do. With the seductive winks and nods and eye lash flickers, the woman's appearance is focused more on than the rhyming of the lines within the song.
The tactics of rhyming, attractive women, and television ads just show how technology and campaigning is evolving. These ads show us that in 1952, the world was becoming for technologically advanced and also more deceptive, since now they not only could deceive the audeince not just through the radio, but also visually. The use of attractive women singing and catchy rhyming songs helped to get the tunes stuck in someones head which having an image to go along with the tunes certainly helped also.
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Wow, great analysis, Caitlin! Not only have you done justice to each of the ads you analyzed, but you've identified common themes and arrived at some creative and insightful conclusions which you support well with specific examples from your reading. Nice work. I'm so interested in the impact that technology has on politics in this country. You raise a thoughtful point about being able to deceive. The development of the 30 second spot does start to change the way that Americans choose their leaders. Does this improve the quality of the candidates we choose? Does it change what we're looking for in candidates? Hopefully we'll get to hear a little more on that subject on Thursday. Nice work.
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