of thomas jefferson, paying particular attention to his ideas on slavery and race. that's at 8:00 p.m. eastern. enjoy american history tv this week and every weekend on c-span3. the first presidential campaign ads air during the 1952 contest between republican dwight d. eisenhower and adlai stev stevenson. ads have been present ever since. here's a look. ♪ ike for president ♪ ike for president ♪ ike for president ♪ you like ike, i like ike ♪ hang out the banner, we'll put ike in washington ♪ let's do the big job right ♪ let's get in step with the guy that's up ♪ you like ike, i like ike ♪ everybody likes ike for

president ♪ hang out the banner, we'll take ike to washington. ♪ where we're going, travel day and night ♪ we'll all go with ike. ♪ you like ike, i like ike ♪ everybody likes ike ♪ we'll hang out the banner ♪ we'll take ike to washington ♪ >> now is the time for all good americans to come to the aid of their country. >> ike.so glad >> bob.n, bob >> ike.e. >> bob. i'm so glad we're friends again, bob. >> yes, ike.' we agree on everything. >> let's never separate again, bob. >> never>> again, ike. >> bob. >> ike. >> bob.

>> ike. >> will ike and bob really live happily ever after? is the white house big enough for both of them? stay tuned for a musical interlude. ♪ ruben, reuben, i've been thinking ♪ bob and ike now think alike ♪ with the general in the white house amorders, bob.eofof the or ike? i'll vote for adlai -- and johne we're pleased to be joined by professor of mass communications and author of "daisy petals and mushroom jo clouds." a look at tv political advertising. professor mann, thank you for joining us here. >> thank you. good to be with you this first e morning. >> weevision start with 1952. that was the first year that television was used as a medium

for political ads. >> yeah. television had been used a little bit in 1948 to broadcast the democratic convention. harry truman made a speech from new jersey att the latter part f the race in 1948, and it was aired on a regional television link-up along the east coast. t but, really, 1952 is the first time you saw candidates advertising in a way that was p not just a speech. so even though, you know, we're going to see a lot of spots thim morning, these 30- and 60-second spots, the candidates still saw a way to give speeches. so in 1962, for example, even though adlai stevenson, the democratic nominee, and ike ive

eisenhower, the republican nominee, the vast number of people who were seeing them were seeing them give 30-minute n tus speeches.andidate stevenson gave three 18-minute speeches on tuesdays and d thursdays in the latter part of the campaign. both candidates were very reluctant to do this kind of spot advertising. they saw politics as being more dignified. they saw spots as the way you sell soup, soap and cereal, not lofty political ideas. >> we are going to see a lot of spots, a lot of ads in the next hour with robert mann from lsu. we welcome your calls and ads that are particularly notable for you.crats, democrats, 207-408-8000, and i understandtevenson pents, 207-4r

so they had to be pushed to do y advertising, correct? fam >> there was an advertising executive who is fairly the prominent, fairly famous for his innovations at the time, robert reed who worked for the bates candida candidacy, and he worked for the campaign to honor their advertisements. as i said ches, earlier, they t it would just be speeches. reed looks at his announcement speech during theenhowe campaigd made two major conclusions, that eisenhower was a terrible speaker, and that these 30-minute speeches were just to complex, too long, that people left the speechch without havina single idea of really what it was about.s. it was just kind of a jum beble issues. he convinced eisenhower to do l this spot advertising, and the

major way people were seeing eisenhower spots was not this simated spot, this jingle you just awsaw, which was interesti people enjoy watching itbu because it sort oo recognizes the first political spot. but most eisenhower spots were these 20-second eisenhower answerer americas spots.nhower he would just look in the camera and answer random questions from the street.g eisenhower thought it was humiliating.of the stevenson thought his spots were a humiliating exercise that nso. degraded the canndidacy and the president. >> two kinds of ads we saw from adlai stevenson.n that one, the donkeys in the ad for then-candidate eisenhower kind of a negative ad in that regardy and, two, who is bob in the rds adlai stevenson? >> so the donkeys that you see i

going backwards -- which as you point out is sort of a subtle, negative add -- that is john sparkman, who was the democratic senator from alabama who was ofe adlai stevenson's running mate, dean addleson who was much reviled by republicans.onservat the bob is robert taft who is mr. conservative, the leader of the republican senator from be ohio's son president taft. in eisenhower ran against taft. taft was his main opponent for the nomination in 1952, and to e win taft's support, he went from taft and promised that he would support hiss conservative agend and even told taft he would give

him some patronage.in lov people thought taft was now controlling the nominee.the th the point is they've fallen in love and taft is going to be ths power behind the throne if eisenhower is elected president. >> the title of your book, bob mann, is daisy petals and d by t mushroom clouds based on the daisy ad. and the 1964 ad in the lyndon johnson campaign, and we'll follow that with ads from the golden water campaign. here's a look. >> one, two, three, four, five, seven, six, six, eight, nine -- >> 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, n

1. >> these are the stakes, to make a world in which all of god's children can live. we must either love each other oror we must die. >> announcer: vote for president johnson on november 3rd. the stakes hig areh fo too high to stay home. grab! swindles! juvenile delinquency!has to crime!mediat

riots! hear what barry goldwater had tomedi say about our lackatel of leadership. >> the leadership in this natio has the clear challenge to go to work effectively and go to work immediately to restore proper's respect for law and order in this land, and not just prior to election day, either. america's greatness is the yo greatness ofu our people.is ger and let this generation then make a new mark for that greatness. let this generation of americane set a standard of responsibility that will inspire the world. >> announcer: in your heart, you know he's right.: ther vote for barry goldwater. >> there is a lot there, bob mann, but start with the daisy ad and tell us the tenor of the times, 1964, and why that ad came about. >> well, thank you for asking me to set the stage because i think it really is important to understand the atmosphere in thn country at that time in 1964.ilr we're still in the shadow of the cuban missile crisis. we're still armed to the teeth

facing the soviet union, which is also armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. people at that time are really fearful that the soviet union and the united states, even o though the cuban missile crisis had been resolved, we would nala still end up goingnd to war wit them and it would not be a conventional land war, it would be a nuclear war that would destroy much of the world.e and so in that environment comen goldwater, a republican senator from arizona in the '60s, using a lot of bellicose. when president johnson talks d about nuclear bombs, goldwater calls nuclear weapons just that another weapon. a he made a lot of comments like

that over the years that showedt that -- that suggested that he e was kind off reckless and was nt serious about the responsibility of being president when it camew to using nuclear weapons. so people already knew that i goldwater's position on that very itwell, and that's why it takes advantage -- it's clever in so many ways. it never mentions goldwater, as you noticed, because it didn't d need to.give a s the people who created that spow realized all they had to do was sort of giveve a story and let n viewers do the work, let the viewers fill in the blanks with the information and knowledge and emotions they brought to kia that ndspot.so eff that's what makes it so ground-breaking, so clever, and i think soo effective is it put the viewers to work.hey ha it didn't give them a lot of information. it assumed they had a lot of onr information and used that information in a very clear and clever way. >> isn't it true that daisy had only ran it once on tell sflievt

>> it ran as a paid ad in 1964. probably 50 million to 60 someth million peoplein saw that ad wh it aired. it wasn't unusual to have it air a couple times and move on to something else. >> go ahead. >> the spot did air on several i network news broadcasts in its entirety later in the week, because it started making news,p and the goldmaurt people, some republican officials started to reject it, and i'm guessing that between 70 and 100 million es people saw it byting the end of week. >> i think it's interesting that we always associate richard nixon with the watergate campaign, but with barry goldwater, that's his message. >> and that spot you saw there is a distidistillation that the

goldwater campaign made called "choice," and they planned to air it ass a political program s television. goldwater saw it and he said it was a racist spot. he stopped it from being run by the goldwater campaign on national television. it did get run on regional, ho localus television stations and lot of house parties, but they did take the essence of it and i distill it down to this de-second sdmot -- take awhe de john f. kennedy wasgr seen by a lot of republicans as adding to and causingcivi a lot of moral degradation of the country, thee civil rightstn movement and som of the -- there weren't a lot of protests over the vietnam war a that time, but all this unrest

and unsettling environment were growing, and conservatives werey nervous and scared about it. goldwater and his campaign were trying to take advantage of that fear and growing unease with a certain percentage of the population. >> we are looking at the histors of presidential campaign tv jon advertisingal on six-approximat months. we'll get to your fairly. dem crass, 602, 7,000-04. twitter from michael says tv in its infancy morks reflected on . the ads shown during r intermissions. plus the culture was much more h conservative then. his observation. >>to from 1952 through 1964, i object -- infancy is the right word to use. people who were doing this stuff

for politicians were really experimenting. they didn't really know what d'' they were doing.ey werer today you wouldtoda go and hiree political professional, an ad firm that specialized only in producing political spots that relied on just gobs of public opinion research and focus groups. they just didn't know anything about that. this was technicians producing these spots. it was really people that arranged a presentation of a 30-minute speech or a five-minute distillation of a yn 30-minute speech on air. it wasn't until the national firmrm got the account that did lyndon johnson's campaign that h true principles were brought ton presidential campaigns. p the reason i wrote this book is because to me, this is a hinge moment when people saw, oh, this is how you get it done.

this is how you advertise w political orideas,k you create t spots that are interesting, that are clever. they put the viewers' ook at information back to t work, not just the political ideas. you can see there is a moment in time when everything changes. >> let's go to brent in jacksonville, florida.ou good doingmorning, you're on w professor mann. >> caller: good morning. how you doing?ust ha >> good, thank you. >> caller: i just have a mestion about the modern day presidential commercials. it just seems to me biden -- you said he ran for president because of the fine people, of

comments r by president trump, d he seems to cut out right after that line where he condemned white supremacists, neonazis, but that's all he's left out. do you know what i'm saying? >> brent, mr. mann, what are some of your ideas of modern day present ads versus what we're seeing here in 1964? >> they're a torrent of ads and they're targetedwa in a way then aren't today. the goldwater ad aired mostly on national television, and even then, there were certainly swing states, more of them than we eaf have today,or but they were jus broadcasts. they were meant for almost everyone to see them, so they weren't targeted.based today what you see is a much more finely sliced and diced

electorate based on the o profiling and polling that these candidates and their campaigns r do. so when you see an ad, especially if you see it onlinea you're justlly scrolling throus internetet on a website and t n you seet an ad, that's usuallyn ad meant just for you. it wasn't meant for your en mea neighbor, it wasn't even maybe meant for your spouse or . children. it was meant for you because of your shopping behavior, your to buying behavior, your registration, where you live.s'' these ads are much more finely targeted to people. it doesn't mean they always hito thepp mark, but other than stylistic reasons, that was the most effective way to advertise prior to the internet.presiden >> thank you for calling. >> just doing the research, i

remember in 1961, president kennedy did a speech at the waldorf astoria called "the outh president and the e press" and then you had the edward r.murrow talking about the media.he now you see the media is not monitoring properly.en the were those men right, were kennedy and murrah wlright whenm they say we're not using television to write, it just seems like that's where we've e gotten to rather than supplying useful information to the people. >> thanks, john. >> that's a very good question. i would say they were not so much right but they were

prescient. i would say in the early to mid-60s, there was an advantageo and a disadvantage. you may not have had a lot of access to different sources of news over three major networks, maybe you had a couple local newspapers, some radio, but they were genuinely agreed-upon factd that if something happened, every americanan had the same basic understanding of that. you may think that's good, you ' may think it's bad, it's just wherever we are. on we're a totally practicing me t meant -- fragmented nation, and we're not hearing the same thing, we're not talking about the same thing, and personally,n

i'm not sure that's a good thing, but it is what it is. and i think kennedy and those si wereng probably prescient. maybe they saw what was coming or maybean they were criticizin something that they certainly didn't anticipate the internet, but here we are. >> let's go to tim, north ois, chicago, illinois, on our independent line.cak you good morning. >> good morning and thank you for c-span and mr. mann. the question has to do with the rules and ethics of political campaigns, presidential , campaigns.t of historically, and especially up to present day, is there a commission or a set of rules that campaigns must follow to make sure campaign ads are done properly outside of slander? >> excellent question. in the 1960s, there is a fair

election practices commission, there was a ents andnonpartisan commission that didn't have a whole lot of teeth to it but it could make some judgments and i pronouncements andin declare th the spot was unfair and maybe embarrass a candidate into removing an add or changing an ad. ht sort rules of the prevailins since the advent of television have been the federal elections commission andmo the principle enshrined in our law and our constitution that the politicald speech is the most highly protected form of speech. so, you know, candidates have generally been ablete to say whatever they want to say in vin their ads, , and television stations cannot center those. they can't tell them, you can't say that. it's the most highly protected m

form of osspeech.of voter so candidates really are mostly governed by the judgment of the voters, by the people. if i say this, it's not that it's wrong or illegal, it's will the voters react horribly to ita will it backfire on me? honestly, that's really the maih check that candidates in the candidate committees -- not third-party committees which are under different rules, but candidates can pretty much say what they want. >> morent more ofof your calls join momentarily and some comments on text and twitter, and this generation of television paign. professor s with robert mann. let's move on to two ads from the 1968 campaign. ♪

♪ >> it is time for an honest look at the problem of order in the united states.ge, ther dissent is a necessary iolenc ingredient for change, but for what provides for peaceful change, there is a resort to oi violence. keep ined sta mind that every c has a right in america to be free from public violence. so i pledge to you, we shall have order in the united states. [ laughter ]

>> so, bob mann, the first one , on the nixon ad, the tag line that said vote like your whole world depended on it, that was very reflective of the ad that goldwater, in your heart ater you know he's right.t. i love those statements. >> the goldwater statement, i always tell my students that's t great example that you really ve ought to focus group your slogan, your tag line, because it didn't take the johnson campaign five minutes to respond to with in your heart you know n he's right -- or in your heart you know he might. those tag lines were really big in those days, and -- but, yeahs that is a reflection of the sense that republicans and conservatives had that the worln was sort of falling apart, crumbling apart, traditional

conservatism, this right for t. order, and law and order has been the wayy to express that fr a very long time. >> one observation on the tag line from twitter by cynthia, she says, 1964's "in your heart, you know he's right" becomes suburbs under threat in 2020. the ad on agnew, did people gett that ad at the time? >> it's in the same spirit that it's using emotions that voterso at least it's trying to, and they're expected to do some of the work. you know, the agnew of october 1968 in the voter's mind was certainly not the agnew of 1974 in voters' minds, but there were questions about agnew's behavior, his ethics, his

morality at the time. agnew was already making statements that were mildly he s embarrassing to the republicans, and so it was -- he was unknown. he was a largely unknown person, so it was just a way of t ridiculing talking him a lightweight or unknown. that spot would have had much more residence if you ran it ino 1972 or 1974.t in the >>i i have a quick question for you which asks, how much did a e commercial cost back in the '50s and '60s to run? >> good question. your if you were going to -- it depended what show you were running it in. a lot of it depended on your production costs. i'll just give you one example that i know of, the daisy girls spot. it cost around 20, $25,000 to

buy the time on nbc to run it for a minute and probably cost another 10 to $20,000 to produce. i can't remember what that woull be in 2020 dollars, but it visin wasn't tcheap, and it still ist cheap to buy a minute of time on network television. it's very expensive. that's why you don't see a lot of network spots today, becausec they are expensive, they're not well targeted. in ga candidates really prefer going for more ads for their money. >> caller: good morning and thanks for thehethe me trip dow lane. so much has changed since the early days. the media also plays a role in it. the news was much less opinion, and of course we just had newspapers and television and radio things.

i love the presidential advertisements, but i do still keep in mind that they're vertim advertisements. i was wondering, sincece so much these has changed now with social ar media andth everything, how man people do you think are really affected by these ads? are they worth the money spent f on them and has that changed in, say, the '60s until now or the '50s when they started? >> that is the essential question of all of this, what difference does it really make? i started out my spent on barry goldwater's candidacy, and what i found bar. the rough spots the johnson campaign aired throughout the month of september, the world was virtually unchanged.

goldwater was cruising to lose, and he did, he lost by a historic margin at the time. i think even today these spots are not as effective or f determi determinative as you might think. thesepercen o candidates are sp thousands of dollars aimed at certain people, many who may not vote at all. i think people are kind of i am p -- what impervious to this std they don't know what else to do. now, at the local races, senator, congressional races, mayoral races, i do think it makes a difference. in those instances, the voters don't have a lot of information about the candidates. newspapers are going out of

business, tv stations are airing much and much less political news, so a lot of the ampaig information that voters getn today is not from the media, fc they get it from the campaign commercials. that's a $fact than they do at the presidential level. >> here's dawn -- don. >> caller: robert, i've got l several questions here.nt about this ad that biden ran in the e last segment about blaming trumt for all of the coronavirus deaths, which he did the best he could, he did much better than biden would have ever done or obama. he refe but, anyway, he referred to how many empty chairs there is at the table, but i just wonder how many of these empty chairs are little high chairs that the

democrats are putting at these tables. t and otherhe s thing about the replacement of the supreme cour justice, obama give -- >> don, i'm on thed. history of presidential campaign tv ads. thanks for your comment. we go next to richland, washington, democrats line. >> hello? >> hi there. you are on the air. >> oh, good morning. good morning, professor. when i seen that commercial, when you showed that this morning it took me back to when i was seven years old and it's amazing. it's amazing how that really -- not the first part of it, of wao course, but the second part and it always -- i always wondered why i was so scareded of nuclea war. but the other they think i wanted to ask you, this is the most important question, and i don't know if you can answer t but1970' it seems like during t '70s, late '70s, it didn't used

to have to be like when johnny carson and all the other people used to be on, didn't they -- hm when one presidential -- what at i trying to say? when one person -- say like y he trump and t biden were both running, didn't they have to have the same exact time? one o i mean, one couldn't have more time than the other one on tv? >> right. >> thanks for that is correct mary. the equal time i think is what she's referring to. >> yeah, and that's one of the reasons why we didn't have debates for a while there between 1 1960 and 1976, that fairness doctrine, you would have had to have -- at least linden surgeons dn sh he didn't want to debate barry goldwater so he would have insisted on ge. every third-party candidate being on the stage. that was a big factor in politics having politicians on for interviews like on johnny carson. going to come on

you had to give equal time to humphrey. we don't have that anymore peop because wele recognize that new organizations can use their judgment and, you know, most th people aree pretty happy with n giving media organizations the ability to make that decision ie than having o the federal government impose on both sides a certain time that they have to be on the air.n on >> t the question of broader question about advertising. good morning, at some point later on would dr. mann compare the evolution of campaign ads to trends and commercial tv ads over the same time?comp >> yeah, so that's a very interesting question and i thinu they does sort of -- i think th product advertising always leads the way and i think that's because i've thought about this a lot and i've decided it's because, you know, bars of soap can't talk back to the

advertising executive.do and politicians can and do and they do tend to be liberals and conservatives tend to be very conservative with a small c when it comes to their image and to e the kind of messages and tactics they're willing to use on which television in their ads which is why both add allay stevenson and quite eisenhower were hesitant to go on tv and do spot advertising inn 1952 pause they want to be dignified. they don't want to do something that is undignified or boom ranges on them. so i think if you want to know where political advertising is going sometimes you have to -- if you see where product rtisin advertising isg today, that mas be where political advertising is in five toto ten years. >> we are talking about the history of presidential campaigns, tv advertisement with professor robert mann from pres louisiana state university and theid author of "daisy petals a

mushroom clouds." american history tv is on every weekend on c-span 3. we enjoy you to keep us every weekend. here on washington journal a co-production as well. let's move on to the year of 1980, jimmy carter running for reelection against ronald [videc reagan. here is a look. >> each day many people come to >e oval office with advice and information, but when it comes time to decide something president carter must decide alone. no matter how many advisers and assistants a president can never escape the responsibility of truly understanding an issue cin himself. that is theethat only way that presidential decision can be made and the only way that this president has ever made one. president carter. >> i deeply, deeply resent and am offended by the attacks thaty president carter hasas made on husband. the personal attacks that he hay

made on my husband. his attempt to paint my husband, as a h man he is not. he is not a war monger, he is not a man who is going to throw the elderly out on the street and cut out their social security. that's a terrible thing to do and to say about anybody.there that's campaigning on fear.i wo there are many issues that are at stake in this campaign. i would like mr. carter to explain to me why the inflationn is as high as it is, why unemployment is as high as it is.s. i would like to have him explain the vacillating weak foreign policy so that our friends overseas don't know what we're going to do, whether we're goinw to stand up for them or whether we're not going to stand up fori them, and the issue of this campaign is his three and a half year record. >> the timeme is now for strong leadership. >> bob mann, my first observation on the jimmy carter ad is it's dark, i mean, the room is dark, the ad itself is s

dark, but i understand he got a fair amount of push back from using the oval office in a political campaign, did he not? >> yeah, absolutely. and that was not something that was seen then or now as proper using the white house itself as a stage for a political -- for a blatant political spot. gets you know, trump gets -- eve president trump gets soment criticism for the events that he -- campaign events that he n has held at the white house as n if this ise the first time it's. been done. jimmy carter did it. also there was another spot that carter aired that year in which it showed him on air force one. so he not only used the oval office in that spot, there was o another spot that carter aired in which he was sitting at his oval office desk appearing to be praying, it was about carter's faith and it showed carter -- looked like he was bowing his head at the oval office desk praying. so this is -- this is not -- n. seeing now is not exactly new in american

politics. >> on nancy reagan, first of all, i was struck and reminded that she's very -- not just very poised, she was an actress.thatw that was her career. she spoke well on camera, her el diction is great and -- but was she the first potential future t first lady, spouse, presidential spouse, presidential candidate spouse, to appear in an ad? >> i'm not aware of another one. i think she was the first one td appear speaking in an ad. lyndon johnson aired a spot in 1964 that had him standing next to lady bird on the tarmac returning to andrews air force t assassination of president kennedy, but it's the first time that i'm aware of that the candidate's wife is actually speaking and not just speaking to talk about how wonderful her husband is, but it's a clever, i think, effective use of the candidate's wife to attack the other to

sndidate, which kind of softness the blow, youec know, n here is ronald reagan campaign saying jimmy carter is attacking us and it's unfair and then she quickly sort of pivots to attacking jimmy carter. so their sense certainly was that they could be seen as protesting the attacks and attacking back but doing it in a very soft way. the os nancy reagan, as you say, was an actress which the other thing about that spot which i think is effective is she's clearly not reading from a teleprompter, she's just talking, which i think in these spots, when you see spots where the candidate is just clearly just conversing ase opposed to reading, looking into the camera and reading a teleprompter, i think those are always more effective because they just seem more authentic and genuine. >> what's more is her message, part ofcr her criticism is a ta substantive policyab criticism vacillating foreign policy, she talks about jimmy carter and ecn

ignoring our allies' interests overseas which has some reflection of the current tone of the 2020 campaign. >> yeah, that's the thing about these spots. when you start going back to eisenhower and america and those 20 second spots, go look at those and you would be gob s smackeded by how the themes from these earlier campaigns are still the themes we are talking about today, high energy prices, high corruption in government, h the degradation of our standing across the world. these are not what we are talking about today are not old issues, it's the same old clothes just different people are wearing them. ho >> your calls and questions on presidential tv ads, we will go to the phones now with new castle, delaware.er: anna on the republican line. >> yes, i'm calling about joe biden being on television. i'm getting so sick of it and i called the cable company the other day and told them that i e

think theyn should send my mon back for this month because all i see when i sit down, i'm 84 years old, sit down and watch television and all i see is joe biden telling his lies. that man lies so bad and they talk about trump.he was i i said he told on there about tn his wife getting killed and baby and he was in the hospital and he found out that one of his sons had cancer.demo four years later. >> okay. to robert, reston, virginia, democrats line. c hialli there.. >> good morning. i'm calling because i want to point something out that isn't e discussed, which is how much money is going to all these th networks and various televisiono stations and like that. i mean, it really -- so much of this money thatto we're donatin to these campaigns, basically a we're taking it, giving it to the campaign and the campaign is giving it to all these el lik companies. it'sst be a little ridiculous it's so much money that i feel

like there should be a better time to do this with a pseudo public type of thing with shared time. that's what i was having to say. >> okay, robert. >> i couldn't agree more. i couldn't agree more. i think you're absolutely right. i haven't done it this year witd one of my classes but four years ago i took the ten or so and h battleground states and looked at what thecampai undecided was polls in those states and took how much money the campaigns 3% were o spending in those stateso try to influence that 3% to 4% t that was undecided and you look at the cost per vote, how many hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent to influence this very small slice of the electorate, many of whom my philosophy has always been if you are undecided at this point in a presidential election and there is an incumbent running you're undecided between the challenger and not voting at ca all. you have already madegns woul y up mostly about the incumbent. o i think that campaigns would be

smarter too putt that money int organizing and field organizing and more direct voter contact a into the kind of -- the labor that takes years and there's thn problem because most of this money is raised in the last few months of the campaign. they really need it back in neet april ando march to begin doin the kind of work you need to be doing. when you get $10 million dumped in your lap before the electionu the only c thingan d to do with put it into advertising. >> a comment from prescribing alley in portland, oregon, who d says i have two of robert's books and recommend him to everyone. question, has the guest seen a daisy petals commercial of comparable power in this election or any other since 1964? if not why not? >> well, by power i would argue that the daisy girl spot was ow- powerful not because it changeds a lot of votes, although i think

it maybe solidified some votes e againstr, barry goldwater, but l think the daisy girl spot was powerful mainly because it litia changed the way we thought about political advertising. it changed the methods of advertising. it completely revolutionized political advertising. so i would say no because, you know, maybe -- and we will see this shortly, the 1984 morning in america spot that ronald reagan ran when he was running for reelection, you know, that spot is comparable in some ways, but it didn't -- i wouldn't say it revolutionized political advertising. so, no, i'm not sure that there's anything to compare to it. >> and you're teeing it up for us there, bob mann.984, its we do have that lined up next.kl 1984. it starts withth that morning i america ad. let's look. >> it's morning again in america. today more men and women will go to work than ever before in our

country's history. with interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980.rm nearly 2,000 families today will buy new homes, more than at anya time in the pastrs four years. r this afternoon 6,500 young men i and womennf will be married and with inflation at less than half of what it was just four years ago, they can look forward with confidence to the future. it's morning again in america and under the leadership of president reagan our country is prouder and stronger and bettere why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?ple, the >> there is a bear in the woods. for some people the bear is ease to see, others don't see it at s

all. some people says vi theciou beao tame, others say it's vicious and dangerous.s.t it since no one can really be sure who is right, isn't it smart to be asbear strong as the bear? if there is a bear. ♪ teach your parents well ♪ the children's help will slowly go by ♪ ♪ don't you ever ask them why jt ♪ if they loo told you you woul cry ♪ ♪ so just look at them and si sigh ♪ ♪ and know they love you >> okay. bob mann, going back to the morning in america, first being a fan of voices, the guy who did that spot, i mean, he may have

done campbell's soup and everything at the time, he was a very familiar voice-over guy at the time, but moreto h of that sort of combined the music and soft focus, it seemed to have everything that it needed. >> yeah, it really did. i think that is one of the best spots. i think you could argue -- i e t haven't looked at the tpolling but i think you could argue that that spot was truly an effecti'' spot that maybe didn't win votes but it certainly confirmed -- is was made to confirm the general feeling that people in the united states had at the time that things werere better and ty were better because of -- because of reagan's policies. it's an idealized view of america, certainly not everyonea would have argued that that wasy the state of the country in 1984, but it did sort of summarize the zeitgeist of the time and made -- i think reinforced people's feelings rt that things are moving in the si right direction. a that's just a beautiful spot and

it goes to what i was saying earlier about using these madison avenue techniques. there's a documentary that was produced a number of years ago g that compared that spot to a pepsi ad using some of the -- ms almost the exact same images that pepsi was using to advertise its product. that morning in america spot is really sort of the culmination of the marriage between, you know, washington political advertising and madison avenue. >> and on the mondale spot, the teach your children spot, obviously some echos to the daisy ad of 1964, but the use of that song, was this one of the first times that a music group,f stills and nash in this case gave permission for a campaign to use what was then a hit song of theirs? >> yeah, you know, music was clearly from the very i am beginning -- i'm not aware of any other spot, i may be wrong about this, but i'm not aware of any other spot that used a very

widely recognized popular song. there were other music that was recognizable, nixon's campaign used a lot of music in its spots in 1968, but i think you're right, i think that this is the first time that you saw a popular rock group having its music used in a spot like that.t >> let's hear' from doug, next p in palmer, alaska. go ahead, doug. >> yeah, good morning. i was just wondering was it bill mower's television journalist strongly associated with developing the daisy ad? i remember when i first heard that i was shocked that a ri television journalist would be h associated with a political obo party, but now it's pretty obvious that most television journalists are not only members of the democratic party but strongly associated with helping a democratic party. t >>rusted well, bill moyer was a

aide, one of the most trusted aides that lyndon johnson had and did not become a journalist until after he left the white e house. he was tangentially involved in the daisy girl ad. the daisy girl spot was produced by the madison avenue firm of . doyle, dane burnback which is still a prominent advertising firm. theyow produced that spot, brout it to the white house to show to lyndon johnson and his people. i believe bill moyer was there and the night that it showed on television johnson starts me of getting some phone calls from friends reacting to the spot and some reacting negatively and moyer is called to the second jo floor of the white house where johnson is having dinner with some friends and johnson makes quite a production out of telling, you know -- kind of dressing moyers down about the spot and telling him to look into it. moyers turns, goes back towards the elevator, moyer says johnsoi

follows him to the elevator and says, do you think we really g w ought to only runas it once? johnson was -- recognize that had it was a good spot, moyer did, too. moyer may have been in on the decision to tell ddb not to air it again, but he had nothing really to do with its creation. next up in new prague, minnesota. democrats line. >> hello. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> yes, i just wanted to comment, i guess i'm old enough to remember how things were back in 1964 and '68 and so forth. and i remember in '64 that ad, s the daisy ad, it was very effective, but it was also really accurate. at the time goldwater he was very radical about the use of nuclear weapons, he was also a e

racist, which people don't bring up, but he was, he voted against the 196 # voting rights act and the civil rights act in '65, i have those backwards, actually, but he voted no on both of those black voting rights and he was a known racist and the people knew it and it worked out in the southern states and many of the people in the democratic party . switched party, the dixiecrat s and aligned with the southern x republicans. but from that time on the next go around with nixon ago knew, that particular ad about ago s knew, he did have some serious problems that i don't remember all of them now, but it was pretty well known and that's why that ad was so effective back then. >> all right, bob.b. robert mann?

>> yeah, so the -- the 19 -- his point about 1964, there was -- there was a lot of knowledge in the voters' minds about goldwater's vote on civil rights, it wasn't a secret he was one of the few republicans who voted against the 1964 civil rights act and johnson's campaign in the beginning thought that they would make the campaign about that, they began when they started looking at the flight of spots they might air beginning in september that they would focus on that, and their h polling, their research, they came up with the conclusion that much more effective was americans' fear over the unitedh states going to ware so withvi soviet union. so what originally was going to be a flight of spots attacking goldwater over civil rights sp became maybe four or five spotsf

thater attacked goldwater on th issue of nuclear war, nuclear proliferati proliferation, his opposition to the nuclear test ban treaty. it was in their estimation and i think they probably were right, it was a more effective ad, more effective message to try to put forth because voters were much n more aware of where goldwater stood on nuclear war than they were aware of where he stood on civil rights. >> a comment from albert in oklahoma. he says,n please take into account that many families did not each own televisions at thee time frame being discussed. bob mann, what was the saturation? how different was the saturation of tv households, say, we started in 1952 versus where we are in the -- in 1980? >> so in 1952 there were about l 50 million homes with televisions in them, there were about 50 million televisions, every home mostly had one television. by 1964, '68, through the '70s

and '80s every home had a are o television. it was really total saturation. even today there are people who don't have televisions and don'v watch tv, but remember in those days all you had to haveantenna >> right. >> you didn't have to pay for ca cable so it was a lot easier to see this programming than maybe it is today because so many t t people live in ruralki areas, ty maybe don't get the kind of receptions they have to pay for cable. people weren't paying for dmabl 1964, 1968, 1972. >> but we're glad they're paying for it now.-- 1 on american history tv on c-span 3 we welcome our viewers from hy american history tv and here on washington journal and a 90-minute special focusing on the history of presidential campaign ads with our guest ste mann.t mass communications professor ao louisiana state university. more of your calls momentarily, but let's move ahead to the 1988

race and george bush, george h.w. bush and michael dukakis. >> bush and dukakis on crime. bush supports the death penalty for first degree murderers, dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first degree murderers who have passes from prison. 10 week one was billy horton. despite a life presence horton g received ten week passes from prison. weekend prison passes, dukakis on crime.ison >> george bush talks fur a lot t prison furloughs but he won't tell you that the massachusetts program was starteded by a republican and stopped by mike dukakis, and bush won't talk about the thousands of drug kingpins furloughed from federat prisons while he led the war on drugs. bush won't dea talk about this pusher, one of his heroin

dealers who raped and murdered a pregnant mother of two.george the real story about furloughs h is that george bush has. taken furlough from the truth. >> bob mann, who was behind the infamous willie horton ad? >> that ad was produced by a the third partyty -- a third party y political organization that was very closely aligned with the republican party and the bush campaign called national security pack, it ran on -- just ran on cable and when it was o taken off it didn't run very mpi long, but when it was taken offw the bush campaign immediately went on the hair with a much more polished spot that attacked -- that attacked the whole furlough program in massachusetts under michael dukakis, showed a revolving door of these people going in and out, looked like they were going coming out of nd was the prison and mentioned willie horton.at spot, willie horton was not the only figure discussed in that spot,

but it was based on the willie horton spot. a lot of people think the first willie horton spot was a bush ad, it really wasn't but it wase clear there was some sort of see either unspoken or spoken ir to coordination between the two campaigns in producing that because they were so closely tt aligned. i think it is fair to say that it's worth pointing out that ecc willie hortonal or at least not willie horton specifically but the wholerimari furlough progra first raising the campaign earlier this year in the primaries in a debate in new . york by al goree running for th democratic nomination against michael dukakis.first an he raised the furlough program first and then the republicans picked it up in the general election. >> the democrats, though, the dukakis campaign used that revolving door imagery in theiry response, didn't they? >> yeah, that's one of those things that i've always found a little curious, nancy reagan did it in the spot we showed tell te earlier, it's one of the principles that a lot of political communicators try to bll their candidates, don't

repeat the charge, but that whole dukakis campaign was is in study i don't want to say too s strong in says incompetence but it was a poorly run campaign in so many ways. the dukakis campaign waited way too long to respond. you see those two spots r, you juxtaposed and it's s like one r spot showing and voters a few minutes later seeing another spot on television. it was several weeks before buha kau can i say figured out to respond and that was the story of the whole dukakis campaign.e they looked at 1,000 different scripts for spots until the fall campaign ran. they dill yeed and dal yeed over them and they weren't as nimble which is why in 1992 you saw m. bill clinton institute a war room to respond more quickly to these kind of charges.ecover dukakis was found flatfooted and never really recovered from the furlough spot and the other rn bush ran against him st: attacking him for his opposition

to, for example, the death penalty. >> i recognize and remember that voice from the dukakis responsee ad was a well-known washington based but national voice-over artist by the name of larry lumen. people who did these ads eithere the voice-over i artists or parr actors, did they ever find a disadvantage in terms of them being labeled as one political party or the other?t know >> you know, i don't know. i haven't heard of anybody being labeled as one party or another. you know, it may be the case. i haven't focused on that too . much. i would like to point out it was something that i didn't mention early on, talking about bob and voiceovers. you remember back to the beginning of the program when ws showed that bob and ike spot from 1952. >> right. >> both voices in that bob and d ike spot were mel blanc who was the voice of bugs bunny and elmer fud and the other spot, the eye like ike was a spot isn, introduced by roy disney, walt i

disney's brother. there are these quite example of prominent people, well-known e d people, well-known voice actors who are doing or involved in on these spots who maybe w don't g the credit they deserve and thee probably don't often want the credit. they are voicehe actors. they have doing it for the paycheck, they are not going out and finding a republican or democratic voice actor, the d of police cal consultants are looking for a particular kind of voice not a voice that -- the person who agrees with the politics. >> let's hear from art next up,e milan, tennessee, on the rning. independent line. go ahead. >> good morning. >> good morning.g. > i have a question about he [ inaudible ] -- the progression of [ inaudible ] -- rt, i >> art, i'm sorry, your phone io breaking up. i really apologize, we can't really hear what you're saying,. maybe try dialing back in. inglewood, ohio, next up, rocky on the republican line.

>> yes. i want i just wanted to make a statement in regards to the use of the moneys that the democratu get for these and use authorize these commercials. they would be better used giving the people on this world that are without the moneys so that they could live a decent life like they're supposed to be. that's all i've got to say is god bless you. >> bob mann, you kind of ess yo addressed that,u. but any furth response? >> well, you know, the thing is that we spend a lot of time talk being how much money is spent on these ads, it's a billion dollars, $600 million is a lot of money for any family, but it's a fraction of what coca-cola spends every year on its advertising. i mean, this is -- it is -- you know, when you look at the tota advertising budgets of some of these major corporations, look at the total amount of money ste

that is spents on advertising products of all stripes across the board, the amount of rtisin political advertising isg a dr in the bucket. what makes it seem like it's just so obscene is that it's all -- it's mostly compressed in six weekswoomes months to of a campaign. so by the time the campaign -- by the time election day comes along you feel like you've seen nothing but political ads, but they're really concentrated in the last few weeks of a campaign and they just sort of magnify -- i think the voters mind how much money is being spent. relatively speaking it's really not that much. >> on sundays here on washington journal we welcome our viewers andd ouruk partnership with the bbc parliament channel in this final hour of the program we say good morning from the uk. this is dennis.ing. hi there. >> good morning. having successfully fought against republican voter suppression in florida,a, both '68 and in 2000 i was wondering

it always seems like it's the republicans suppressing the vote. have you ever seen any evidence of the democrats trying to suppress the vote?r. >> well, first of all, dennis, i'd like to say you should be a voice actor, you have a great ud voice, you should consider's narratinga a spot. that's a good question. you know, i think that, you know, what you see right now, what you've seen over the last 20 years are republicans pushing for -- you know, talk about voter -- they don't use the wor voter suppression so much they h talk about ballotink integrity. it's republicans who are mostly talking about that, not democrats. i think it's because of the led generally agreed -- maybe it's not accurate, but the generally agreed supposition that, you know, the more people who vote g the better it is marginally for democrats, democrats tend to turn out more in big elections and presidential election years and so on these elections that

are going to be decided by small margins the -- you know, the -- you know, all these tactics come into place. where political advertising comes into this and i'm sort ofa talking around the question a to little bit, but i'd like to bak bring it back to political advertising if i could. - that is there is a sense that i think has been around in political science for a long time, i'm not sure, i think it's maybe fallen in the disfavor a little bit, the negative advertising, depresses voter mpa turnout. if we can make the campaign as negative as possible, if we can make itt as nasty as possible people will be turned off. there used to be this sense that republicans anded some democrat were -- would want you to just e be disgusted and walk away and that's why we had so much negative advertising. i don't think that's the case and i don't think that's the sensibility that most candidates have now, this he really just want to attack the other side to gain advantage but it used to bb seen for a long time as a voter suppression tool. >> a question for you from carl,

traverse city, michigan.nt t hehi said, mr. mann, can you comment on the ads as brand veu awareness and brands gative reinforcement versus the." adve of branding the opponent by, quote, going negative. also interesting that the media is the, quote, enemy of the bo state yet election years are boom years for media companies.d billions of dollars pumped into companies whose boards and tivec leadership are typically conservative yet their front line employees are accused of being bias. >> there's no -- i'm kind of maybe -- sounds like i'm contradicting myself a little bit, these tv stations and news organizations are happy to have that money and there is a lot -- there is a lot of it that comes in in a very short -- in a very small time frame, so i'm not -- i'm not at all diminishing the impact of the money, especially to the organizations and the local tv spaces that love having that money, although i think once you -- if you are living iy a swing state and you're seeing

a bunch of political ads you are probably not seeing as many ads for trial lawyers and car dealers. youwas th start seeing those ont november 4th and maybe get sick of those all over again. what was the first question? >> fs talking about the ifference between branding the versus going negative and attacking the brand, if you will. >> that's a really great gu question and i think we're goin. to see in the next campaign, yoe know, eventually -- i think we're going to see -- well, no, in 2000 we will see this bio spot that al gore ran, we may -b i think we will see one that john kerry runs in 2004. nu >> right. >> itte lon used to be really c that candidates would run these minute-long bio spots, george h.w. bush ran one in 1988, you know, sort of introduced myself to the voters, sort of brand myself, here is the kind of person that i am. you don't see those so much

anymore and i think it's by the time the fall election occurs everybody knows who these candidates are. you don't really -- they've been branding themselves all year. you don't see the bio spots as much as you used to, but on the local level, state and local level, it's still very, very common to see bio spots as an bc effort to brand -- and here is the other part of it, the opposition, you know, bill clinton did this in '96 famouslr to bob tdolly, started early, early, early in the year, earlier than most presidential m candidates do advertising attach spots against bob dolly to try : to brand him, to try to label him before he could do it for th himself. >> we willou gett to20 those ae 2000 and 2004, this is about 20r minutes left in our history of g presidential advertising with our guest from louisiana state university, robert mann, and your calls and comments but let's move on to 1992, the 1992

race and the ads in that campaign. >> i was born in a little town called hope, arkansas, three months after my father died. i remember that old two-story house where i lived with my grandparents. they had very limited incomes.an it was in 1963 that i went to washington and met president kennedy at the boys nation j program and i remember just tha thinking whatt an incredible et country this was that somebody like me, you know, had no money or anything would be given the opportunity to meet the i cared president. that's when i decided i could r really do public service becaust i cared so much about people.af i worked my way through law school with part-time jobs, t anything i could find. after i graduated i really didn't care about making a lot f of money i just wanted to go home and see if i could make a i difference.heal we've worked hard in education and health care to create jobs and we've made real progress. now it's exhilarating to me to think that as president i couldg help to change all our people'sp

lives for the better and bring home back to the american dream. >> i don't believe him.clin i don't believe him one bit. >> i don't believe him. >> trust. >> i don't know much about clinton except promises. >> he tells everybody what they want to hear. to s >> well, he wantsts to spend mo money and the only place he can get it is from the tax payers. >> higher taxes. >> less food on the table. re >> broken promises. >> less clothes on the kids back. >> i don't know how he can take any more taxes. >> less money to go to the doctor. >> he's h raised taxes in arkansas, he will raise taxes here. >> just less of everything. >> pretty simply who is the best qualified person up here on the stage to create jobs?ob make your decision and vote on november 3rd. might consider somebody who has created jobs. second, who is the best person to manage money? i suggest you pick a person who successfully managed money.th toss the best person to get results and not talk? look at the record, make your an decision. and finally, who would you give

your pension fund and your savings account to to manage?ker and last one who would you ask to be the trusty of your estate and take care of your children i if something happened to you? finally, to your students up there, god bless you, i'm doing this for you. i want you to have the american dream. and to the american people -- to the american people, i'm doing : this because i love you. that's it. >> bob mann of lsu, the ross borrow spot is the least produced, lease slick ad we will see in the bunch we are showing today. >> it may be in some ways my favorite just because it is so unproduced, it's just sort of pure ross perot into your -- you know, into your living room andt i like t i mean, i really like'' it. i don't think it was anrt ineffective ad at all.

some people might look at it and say it was unpolished, but it sort of captured the essence of ross perot, his humanity, his plain spokenness, his authenticity. >> and the man from hope ad, that's the man from hope ad, correct? and that really, too, is a bio ad as you were talking about. >> i overlooked that when we hat were talking with that earlier. that to me is a masterpiece.hats that was a distillation, a 60-second distillation of a oman 15-minute film that was produced by linda blood worth-tomlinson who was a very successful "desig hollywoodni television producera who had several designing women and evening shade, these two very popular shows at the time, she and her husband mary were h very good friends with the clintons, were from that same part of the world that produce this had bio spot and it was shown at the democratic convention in new york in 1992. i was actually there in the fect convention hall and sawiv it ans

it was electrifying and it was veryge effective because, you know, here is clinton, this graduate of georgetown and yale who for a lot of people who didn't know much about him at the time thought he was a child of privilege, that he had grown up in wealth and this film was really designed at showing that he came from the heartland, he came from modest means, he was one of us, i mean, the idea that he was born in a town called hope is just, you know, perfectf you couldn't write a better script for the name of a hometown for a political -- h candidate and thener the most electrifying part of that spot e was the -- herelo is clinton talking about himself as the nd bridge between camelot between y john f. kennedy and this new democratic party and you literally have bill clinton shaking hands in the rose gardet with john f. kennedy.rical it was an electrifying moment when people saw that for the first time and it wasn't just a rhetorical connection that he

had to john f.on kennedy, it waa physical connection and i thinko that it was justst really one o the -- one of the best -- one of the bestt bio spots i have ever seen and the 15 minute spot is really a masterpiece, i have shown it to my students over the years many times because it's just a beautiful piece ofof political advertising. >> let's get back to calls. we want to get to a couple sets of ads before we wrap up. this is tom, rock hall, maryland, democrats line. >> hello, professor. thank you very much for coming on. i was justsh very interested in the bush ad that you showed of willie horton, it reminds me of how bush ran largely to extend reaganism and as reagan ran as a law and order president. i think that, you know, reagan created these anecdotal images like willie horton and welfare queen is another highly of anecdotal and wrong image from a reagan. my question is has this messagei

become less effective ass a foa of propaganda with thes trump campaign and how do you think this form of racism connects evw with the average white voter these days as opposed to back ih the '80s and maybe even in you. nixon? >> okay. tom, thank you.hink b well, i think bush was mostly ia he can any inucus doing this bee dukakis was inept in respondingb toet it. i think there probably were duka better ways to respond to it, certainly quicker ways to respond to it than dukakis did, he was flatfooted and an inept w candidate in many ways. the most effective use that have law and order i think that we've seen issgovern when it's a chal critiquing the governance of the incumbent. so that richard nixon very effectively challenging -- portraying the world under a lyndon johnson democratic presidency that was effective. i think it's probably less effective for the incumbent to

be saying that if you elect me that if you elect my opponent a. you will have the conditions that you now have. it's just a very hard argument a andnd i think that's probably why it's not really t been a very effective message for president trump. >> on the republican line bradley in buckhannon, west virginia. >> hi. yes. good morning. >> good morning. > thank you for c-span. >> good morning. >> i was kind of disappointed that you skipped the 1976 election with ford and carter. gerald ford's presidency was --o had -- the fact that they had to face election in two years so e their foreign policy was ckseat restricted to -- it had to taken ad back seat to domestic polic and the election and i was just wondering what did you -- what did you have to say about the

1976 campaign? inter >> well, you know, that campaign was -- those ads were interesting. that was a tough -- that was a s rough campaign, it's kind of interesting knowing how those two candidates gerald ford and jimmy carter became very good friends later on in life and fr jimmy carter delivers the eulogy at gerald ford's funeral.you wo you would never have imagined that could be possible when you see the rough and tumble spots that they were using. you know, to jimmy carter is basically running against the corruption of the nixon administration, promising that -- sort of tying richard nixon to gerald ford, promising a new start. and then there's also -- you th know, i think if we had more time obviously you would want tg show the bio spot that jimmy carter ran anchoring himself in the heartland values of georgia as a peanut farmer, showing himo on his peanut farm, showing his hometown of plains. they were very -- they were very effective attack spots but they were also i think maybe more so

at framing carter as a complete and total break from this corrupt republican administration that so many yea people still rsremember. as you pointed out we are barely two years since richard nixon had resigned in disgrace. a reminder to all our b callers and c-span radio listeners you can read robert mann's books about the entire book the book "daisy petals and mushroom clouds." let's at least get to the 2000s and hear some of the ads in the 2000 campaign of george bush an> al gore. here is a look. >> 1969, america in turmoil. al gore graduates college, his father opposes the vietnam war, al gore has his doubts but enlists in the army. when he comes home from vietnam the last thing he thinks he wilo ever do is go into politics. wha

he becomes an investigative reporter than al gore decided that to change what's wrong in r america he had to fight for what was right. he ran for congress, held some of the first hearings on cleaning up toxic waste, made g theul environment his cause, bre with his own party to support the gulf war, fought to reform i with time limits. urityght is to ensurees, no, prosperity enriches all our families not just the few, strengthen social security, take on big drug companies that guarantee prescription drugs for seniors, hold schools accountable for results, tax cuts for working families in the middle class. al gore, married 30 years, father of four, fighting for us. >> under clinton/gore prescription drug prices have skyrocketed and nothing has been done. george bush has a plan. add a prescription drug benefit to medicare. >> every senior will have access to prescription drug benefits. >> and al gore, gore opposed bipartisan reform. wil he's pushing a big government ts plan that let's washington

bureaucrats interfere with what your doctors prescribe. the gore prescription plan, an - bureaucrats decide. the bush prescription plan, seniors choose. >> and professor mann, it was pointed out that that george w. bush campaign on prescription g. drugs has a subliminal message in it, in viewing it you see the flash, but it's called the rat's ad. tell us why. -- >> well,l, so the word bureaucrats, this is an add about health care, prescriptiont drug plans and it's not an ad about -- you know, it's an ad attacking -- positive and negative, but when the word bureaucrats comes up on the ed,o screen foru one-third of one second it's enlarged and you just see the last four letters, r-a-t-s, rats.t so some viewer somewhere not anybody connected with the gore

campaign saw it and alerted rat" either somebody in the press or the gore campaign that this thing had -- it had shown rats e for a third of a second and ensued, you know, several days' long brouhaha over whether the bush campaign had implanted a l subliminal message into the end spot.e a ve there are people who you will st find who will still have a very spirited argument over whether -- number one, whether those kind of subliminal messages work, but whether it was intentional or not. you know, it's anybody's guess,s i suppose, at this point whether it was intentional, a third of d second it's kind of hard to de imagine anybody would have noticed it, themocr idea was no would notice it consciously, but uncurbly you would say the democrats are rats. it seems too cute but maybe not. >> to kevin in omaha, nebraska, democrats line. go ahead. . >> hi. first of all, thank you,

professor, for your excellent g. morning. thathis very informative. >> thank you. >> really enjoying it. i was wondering if -- i know that traditionally the campaigns start after labor day.that with the continuing trend towards earlier balloting is t continues, is that particular thing legislated, regulated, and is there a chance that it might move earlier in the -- earlier in the year to be more it h effective? >> wow, great question. yeah, i think it's definitely changed the way the candidates are campaigning today. it's definitely -- who knows what the world will look like four years from now, but if the trend is toward much more earlier voting, then i think sadly if you are not really a ea fan of political campaigns you n are going to see a longer political season. traditionally -- i mean, the campaigns are -- if you are

living in one of these swing states you've put up with a year of this. nationally if you are just watching some of the national yo spots it might be on cnn or n msnbc or fox, you're probably not seeing those in any great al number untilac the last six wee, two months of the campaign. regardless, i think if you are a place like florida or ohio or michigan or wisconsin, nevada, arizona, you're going to be seeing spots like this all year long. >> let's see if we can get to the 2004 ads, robert mann. take a look before we wrap up the program. here is a look.pita >>l. i was born in fitzsimmons army hospital in colorado. my dad was serving in the army air corps. both of thigh parents taught me about public service.e. iise enlisted because i believe service to country. i thought it was important if you had a lot ofofcountr privili had had to go to a great university like yale to give something back to your out of t >> the decisions that he made

saved our lives. >> he risk kd his life to save s mine. >> if you look at my father's time in service to this country whether it's a veteran, prosecutor or senator, he has shown an ability to fight for things that matter. >> john is a face of someone who is hopeful, who is generous of spirit and of heart. >> we are a country of optimists. we are the can do people and we just need to believe in ourselves again. >> a a lifetime of service and strength, john kerry for president. >> i'm john kerry and i approved this message. >> they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads. >> the accusations that john kerry made against the veterans who servedvi in vietnam was jus devastating. >> randomly shot at civilians. >> andd it hurt me more than any physical wounds i had. >> cut off limbs, blown up of bodies. >> that was part of thee, torture was to sign a statement that you

hadad committed war crimes. >> raised villages in fashion e reminiscent e of genghis kahn. >> john kerry gave the enemy for free what i and many of my comrades in vietnam took torture to avoid saying. it demoralized us. >> crimes committed on a day to day basis. >> betrayed us in the past. how could we have loyal to him now. >> ravaged the country side of south vietnam. >> >> he dishonored his country and more importantly the people he t served with.boat he just sold them out. >> swift boat veterans for truth is responsible for the content of this advertisement. >> professor mann in the 2004 campaign the famously that last ad called the swift boat ad, what was the origin of that? >> so that was one of four -- at least four spots that was run by this organization called swift e boat veterans for truth that was a group of vets who were -- who had -- many of whom had harbor'' sort of a -- of ill will the

vendetta against john kerry since 1971 when he testified ad against the vietnam war, before the senate and kerry begins his campaign -- this bio spot, his whole campaign was sort of built around his valor in vietnam, y winning a bronze star, silver star and purple heart as a swift boat captain. this third-party group not associated with the bush campaign began running these ads in several states attacking and undermining the validity of kerry's claims about how he won these medals and that quickly became a major issue in the campaign. it's a greatthir example of how third-party organization using t a -- can run some ads, very small expenditure and how it balloons into a major campaign . issue that's generating a lot of money and becomes the centerpiece of the campaign.

push was down about five points when those spots began airing in august of 2000, by the end of the month they were in the polls. that spots destroyed john kerry's campaign. >> professor at robert mann, ma communications professor at louisiana state university. thanks so much for spending time with us this morning. >> thank you. it was a lot of fun. >> for more on political campaigns, you can find plenty of archival ads, presidential debates and campaign speeches on our website. c-span.or c-span.org. >> every saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span 3 go inside a different college classroom and hear with topics ranging from the american revolution, civil rights and u.s. presidents to 9/11. >> thanks for your patience and for logging into class. >> with most college campuses closed due to the impact of the coronavirus watch professors transfer teaching to a virtual setting to engage with their

students. >> gorbachev did most of the work to change the soviet union, but reagan met him halfway, reagan encouraged him, reagan supported him. >> freedom of the press which we will get to later i should just mention madison originally called it freedom of the use of the press and it is indeed freedom to print things and public things, it is not a freedom of what we now refer to institutionally as the press. >> lectures in history on american history tv on c-span 3. every saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. lectures in history is also available as a podcast. find it where you listen to podcast podcasts. >> you're watching american history tv. every weekend on c-span 3 explore our nation's past, c-span 3, created by america's cable television company as a public service and brought to you today by your television provide

provider. >> weeknights this month we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span 3. tonight university of mary washington professor william crawley discusses the life and legacy of president thomas jefferson, paying particular attention to his words and actions on issues of slavery and race. this talk is from the university's great lives lecture series. that's at 8:00 p.m. eastern. enjoy american history tv this week and every weekend on c-span 3. >> on lectures in history, mary ellen pethel and jennifer dock of belmont university teach a class on the history of presidential campaign advertising from the print and cartoon ads of the 19th century to the television commercials of the mid 20th century to the internet and social media content of the present day. belmont university is located in nashville, tennessee, and the class took place a week prior to the school hosting this year's second