at the history of presidential advertisements in campaigns. we will take your phone calls and tweets. "washington journal" is next. ♪ president trump has been declared virus free by his doctors. he has back to the campaign trail for a weeks worth of rallies beginning tomorrow. is sunday, october 11, 2020. welcome to "washington journal." we will show you some of joe biden's event in erie, pennsylvania. we will start the program with a question about you and your friends and your political views ll that asks, do you have friends or family with opposing political views, and how is that going this election

season? if you support president trump and mike pence, the line is (202) 748-8001. if you support joe biden and kamala harris, the line is (202) 748-8000. if you are undecided, or you support other candidates, the line is (202) 748-8002. if you want to send us a text, that is (202) 748-8003. make sure you tell us your name, where you are texting from. where on twitter @cspanwj, and on facebook.com/cspan. looking at this issue in terms of your political view, your friendships and how that is going on. americans are less likely to have friends of different political opinions compared to 2016. they write, the last four years have taken a toll on democrats bipartisan friendships.

nearly a quarter of democrats say they are not friends with anyone who holds very different political views from them. that is a 14% rise from when questionked the same in 2017. changedans have not significantly, 10% to 12% in the last four years. none of the political parties to sharen more likely friendships with different political views. more democrats have fewer friends, not likely to have friends with different political views. more specific region being reported on in the midwest. in cleveland, swing state voters say the 2020 general election is causing strain on

personal and family relationships. are you having more arguments and disagreements with your friends about politics? you are not alone. the significant number of voters say the current political climate has resulted in a strain on their interpersonal relationships. poll released thursday, they write that republicans, democrats, and independents, men or women, strongly agree that the divisive political environment has caused damage to their relationships with friends and family. that is from cleveland.com. the question for you this morning, do you have friends or family with opposing views? tell us about that and how that friendship or family relationship is going. let's go to rob in new york city on our trump line. good morning, sir.

good morning. i called on the democratic line, but that is ok. i have friends and family who are no longer talking that are trump supporters. i have friends and family who we just stay out of the political conversation. it is quite bizarre for everybody to be so polarized. my position is that the president is not a president. he is a celebrity tv host president. he keeps pretending to be president, and in order to be successful at pretending, he has to drastically reduce his workload, dropping out of ismate change agreements easier than doing the work on climate change. host: let me get back to the question. you said you have to avoid the issue of politics. how do you do that? what do you talk about? brito ore go out for a

something to talk about everything we used to talk about. it is easier to call the coronavirus a hoax than it is to do the real work of reducing the spread of the virus. host: marvin and, who supports joe biden, philadelphia. next, who an supports joe biden, philadelphia. assuming i am democrat because i would not be for trump because i am black. the reason i get to that is ,ecause when i explained myself is not because of trump or me assuming he is racial because i do not know, it

is being an american. i like the clintons. i woke up this morning. i told my wife i want to go independent. biden thiso vote for year, but for the years to come, i am just going to debate who is the best pick. it could be democrat or republican. host: you mentioned you are black. do you have friends who are black who are supporting the president? caller: yes. i have one buddy. we debate all the time. blacks.trump is for the -- heoses the point that top.he racial thing to a

he put it out there. now it is out there. we can solve it. he goes to the point that trump signed the bill with the prisons and stuff like that. he got some good points. i allow people their own thoughts. oppose. for those that do vote for trump, they got their reasons. i have got to respect that because we all different. host: appreciate you calling in. supporting president trump, this is kelly. do you have friends with opposing political views? caller: yes. i am on speaker. can you hear me? host: yes we can. caller: good. i am in a rural area. my son is in san francisco.

he has his fiancee. they were out here last may. i wish i would have had a voice recorder. these people, my son, they attacked me. they called me uneducated because i am a trump supporter because i want a secure border, because i want our jobs back in america, because i support life. we don't even talk any more. from ae will hear supporter of president trump in hermitage, tennessee. caller: hi. how are you? host: doing fine. caller: i supported trump last time and this time. usually i support the one i think will do best for the country. i think that the only thing about biden is that if something

happens to him, we are going to have her there, and i would not want her to be my president. how about your friendships and family relationships? caller: we are great. we are all trump. we do not want her in their telling him what to do. in age.tting up there so is trump. we mentioned the president going back on the campaign trail. that started yesterday with the president speaking from the balcony over the south lawn, speaking to a group of mainly african americans and latinos. here is some of what president trump had to say yesterday afternoon. [video clip] >> i want you to know our nation is going to defeat this terrible china virus as we call it.

we are producing powerful therapies and drugs. we are healing the sick. we are going to recover. the vaccine is coming out very quickly, in record time. we have great companies doing it. they will be distributing and. -- distributing it. through the power of american spirit more than anything else, science, medicine, will eradicate the china virus. europe,flareups in canada. you saw that today. a lot of flareups. it is going to disappear. it is disappearing. vaccines are going to help. therapeutics are going to help a lot. it was later in the day that the statement was issued by the president's physician, dr. says --

doctor says president is not a transmission risk. said, inconley addition to the president meeting cdc criteria for the sake discontinuation of isolation, today's sample demonstrates he is no longer considered a transmission risk to others. now at day 10 from symptom onset, fever free for over 24 hours. there is no longer evidence of actively replicating virus. moving forward, i will continue to monitor him clinically as he returns to an active schedule. that active campaign schedule begins tomorrow. of all we expect will be three rallies this week. tomorrow is in sanford, florida, north of orlando. we will have live coverage on

c-span beginning at 7:00 eastern and also on c-span.org, or you can catch it on the free c-span radio app. back to our question about your friends and family. do you have friends and family with opposing political views? let's go to donald in golden valley, arizona. go ahead. caller: hi i'm a democrat, my wife and i. our mail-in ballots yesterday. we are going to put them in the dropbox tomorrow. two of my friends are republicans. i have learned you cannot bring up politics around them because it just never goes anywhere. my brother is a republican. i talked to him. politics,you bring up

we end up arguing. it is no good. host: has that been long in the making? does this predate president trump? caller: actually, i do not know what the deal is. i do not know what the attraction is. i agree with a lot of these people that think he is just a shaman. i think -- showman. think he believes he knows best. i do not get it. i do not understand it. all you have got to do is look at the man and see what he has actually said and how he has acted. i do not get it. int: richard is next nashville, president trump supporter. good morning. caller: good morning.

in my family, all of the adults seem to be the trump supporters. we get a few of the women that do not want to talk political jargon, if you will. the problem we have is you have got kids and grandkids in their early 20's, and they are used to going to school and getting a free education. my daughter got a free education because i paid for it. my brother has got a daughter who is 27. when they were protesting in downtown nashville, she said, i'm going to go downtown and protest. what do you have to protest? she said, i don't think some of the things going on in this country is right. he said, young lady, you have not lived long enough to know what is right or wrong. a lot of these young people, they do not know what the heck they are doing. when they were burning the courthouse down in nashville,

the camera for the local news caught a young man in his mid-20's. he said, look at that, that is like world war ii. world war ii, son, you have never seen war. there is a difference between video room and fighting something on tv. i was in vietnam. they shoot back. they want to kill you. you have family members. they get a little sideways on stuff. that is what it says in the bible about wisdom. you have got to live your life to have wisdom. jim: some folks on twitter, and, my wife's two sisters spouses are hard-core lifelong , allrats who voted hrc four are voting for trump this november. i have family members who voted for trump. we do not discuss politics at

all. being a trump supporter is not something that makes sense to me. he only cares about himself. voting for someone like that is mind-boggling. steve in pennsylvania, my usingme good friend texting as a means to discuss differences. were we to discuss face-to-face, it would probably get much more emotive and probably loud. .e choose to remain friends i cannot discuss anything with my liberal and democratic family members because they are always telling me to read books. i'm not sure why they cannot rely on fox news and memes for information like me. to independence, missouri, we hear from rob, biden supporter. caller: good morning.

i have an elderly mom and brother in el paso. they are both hard-core trump supporters. they have always voted republican for some reason. they are both on fixed income thatre utilizing programs have been passed by democrats of yesteryear and are benefiting from these programs, but go on and support the republican party and are hard-core supporters of president trump. i think trump has branded himself in the brains of those who support him in a cold like likeon -- cult fashion. even if you show video of him saying horrible things, they are in disbelief. we do not want to listen to that. i think they have basically shut out reality and shut off all of

his bad qualities. i think it has been a horrible for years that has been a disaster for this country. they listen to fox news all the time and nothing else. turn off fox news and listen to something else. listen to something other than right-wing media before you make a horrible decision. one day you are going to look back and tell yourself, what was i doing voting for trump? when you look past the next election, which seems like it is never going to come, but it will be in, we need to look past that and see how we can mend our relationships with our friends and families and go on with rebuilding our lives and rebuilding this nation. i think that is what we need to do. look forward to that and agree that no matter what happens, we will come together and do the right thing for ourselves and

the right thing for this nation because if we do not, i think we are going to be in this situation for a long time. who knows where we will end up? maybe a third world nation. thank you for taking my call. you mentioned the election just over three weeks away. busy week on capitol hill with the hearings for amy coney barrett. our coverage gets underway monday morning, four days of hearings, monday at 9:00 a.m. eastern, obviously a shorter "washington journal" tomorrow and much of the week. janice is in michigan, supporting president trump. go ahead. caller: thank you. yes, i support president trump. i was not always a republican. i voted democrat my entire adult life.

i am almost 76 now. i tell you how radical i was back in the early 1970's. in 1968, the first time i lose eligible -- i was eligible to vote, i voted for richard nixon. and then four years later, i voted for angela davis. host: that is a range. caller: all my life, i was liberal. i was very scornful of the second bush. saw the when i with theons going on democrats wanted to put obama ahead of hillary, and i was a hillary supporter, and i saw what they did, i left the democratic party, and i voted

republican, and i will never go democrat again. , my daughterembers particularly and one of my sisters, believe that i have changed drastically, but i really have not. same, ihold many of the don't know what the word is, but anyway, all i can say is right now my daughter hates me. my sister in california and her husband, my heart is breaking. host: do they feel that you have changed personally, or they just are not accepting the political views mean everything? it is a nonstarter to talk about anything else? the fact that you're supporting

president trump, they see that as a change and are treating you the way you are describing? caller: yes, that makes sense. that is how they treat me so cruelly. it hurts my heart. host: your sister, especially, she has seen your politics range from richard nixon to angela davis, supporting hillary in 2008 and then voting republican in 2008. politically, you have been all over the place. that should come with the territory for your sister. caller: yes. we grow. we mature. we become better informed. we read. we observe. years underour

president trump, before this pandemic hit, we were thriving. we were growing. when i say we, i am talking about our beloved country. badly to see.so i get these really nasty tweets for my daughter and sister and brother-in-law. they will all send me links to poorly sourced articles accusing trump of lying daily. it is just so heartbreaking. for youe more question because you said you would have supported hillary clinton in 2008. when 2016 came around, did you consider voting for her? 2008, ino, because in

vowed to myself in my heart and my brain that i would never vote for another democrat ever again, and that is why i say i left the democratic party, and i have not looked back, and i will never vote for another democrat. i do not trust them. friends oru have family with opposing political views? (202) 748-8001 for those of you who support president trump, mike pence. (202) 748-8000 supporters of joe biden and kamala harris. says, i have an nephew who is a trump supporter who i have not talked to since 2016. threatening messages from trump supporters when i reply to posts. support the peaceful

transition of power, and who does he owe $400 million to? address those questions, there's little left to discuss. i do not friend most of them on social media because i do not want to see them support this racist president. friends with opposing political views? his answer, no, i divorced her. shelley supports president trump. hi. caller: hi. how are you today? host: fine, thanks. caller: i have one good debate we can -- one good friend we can debate. especially if they cannot back their opinion.

i am searching for the truth of both candidates, and we are not getting that. we have got media bias. often on your show, people talk about fox news. if people have not noticed, fox news has changed since roger ailes is no longer at the helm. they may still have a right-leaning approach to news, but it is not as negative and as as otherited left-leaning media outlets are. i have never seen in a nation where a president is trying his hardest to give control of the nation back to citizens and be resistance.ith such nor have i ever seen a president

nominate people for positions that he is responsible for andnating or appointing under president trump, the democrats have opposed every nominee he has named. attention, if pay they will research the record of joe biden, he is not lacking in his record of being supportive of blacks, like integration and issues concerning blacks, is not in line with his language and what he promotes today. he voted against integration. inhad numerous black friends the south who are racist. he even spoke well of george wallace

was critical of people who were critical of fox news. i want to point out two different descriptions of two different events yesterday. the headline says trump returns to campaigning after contracting virus. the cut line says this, supporters of president trump form a line without socially distancing themselves outside of the white house ahead of an event saturday, president sinces first public event contracting the coronavirus. i want to show another photo of an event yesterday. ins is the joe biden event year eight, pennsylvania. in pennsylvania. we can go back into the photo. the same newspaper, description .f another crowd of people

supporters of presidential nominee joe biden lineup along the road in pennsylvania, where he was traveling on saturday. no mention of the social distancing. joe biden in front of a union group yesterday. here is some of what he had to say. [video clip] president deserves a who understands what they are going through. they are facing real challenges right now. dead.han 210,000 are we lose anywhere from 700 to 1000 people per day, dad. the president was told, when he was told 1000 people a day were dying, he said it is what it is. it is what it is because he is who he is. more than 7.5 million americans have been infected.

cases right here in pennsylvania. my heart goes out to all those ,amilies who have lost a child an empty dining room table chair tonight where someone used to seit. host: do you have friends or family with opposing political views? this is from pew research. the headline, few trump or biden supporters have close friends who back the opposing candidate. supporters of donald trump and joe biden are divided not just in their views of the candidates, but they are largely divided in their personal relationships. roughly four in 10 voters in both camps say they do not have any friends who support the

other candidate. they write most voters report having a lot of friends who share their political preferences, around six in 10. trump supporters say they have a lot of friends who share their support for the president. a smaller share of biden supporters say most of their friends back the former vice president in the election this fall. daniel on our biden line. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing fine. thank you. caller: this is a great topic for discussion because it is something that illustrates a point, and this is what i was calling in. let me give you some brief background. i'm an attorney in southern california. i have historically voted to when i going back voted for bob dole against

clinton. this year, i am a supporter for alignednd i feel more with the lincoln republicans and those republicans for biden like john kasich and colin powell. my family, looking at that poll, there is definitely truth. birds of a feather tend to flock together. my family's views for the most part of my life have always been in a line. year, we find this polarization going on in our family, particularly with my muchsabrina, who is very part of the christian right, for lack of a better term. thatiews and the support the evangelical right has aligned with trump has really

questioned her beliefs. we find ourselves getting into these arguments. i think all of this illustrates this broader picture that we are now dealing with what i refer to as the politics of extremes. it is not necessarily extreme politics, but it is the politics of polarization. as an attorney, i deal with divorced couples. i have been doing that for 21 years. we see polarization in relationships. you have families, people who tend to be more aligned toward a particular party than the commonality they all share. what is striking to me is this all seems to come from trump. this is the rhetoric of trump. this is the agenda of trump. it is the policy of division.

supporters,h trump when asked or pointing out a criticism, his handling of the coronavirus, flaunting of the mask, the loss of manufacturing jobs that have not come back, all kinds of disappointment over the last four years, you tend to find immediate criticism of biden. what is biden done in 47 years? that is the politics of extremes. we are all part of a much larger picture of americans before we are republicans or democrats. i believe in our system. i believe in what the founding fathers set up. if i could make one other comment about the issue with the supreme court. concern, courtof

packing, what is going to happen? i wish someone would take a look historically. i was a political science major in college. what we learned was at times when the court seemed to have a particularly one way or the other,, justices themselves , creatingn switch their own little groups within to supreme court itself bring its own system of checks and balances because what ultimately mattered to the justices was the concept of and balancestency and proper representation of the country's views in their opinions. i am here to say everybody calm down. more aboutll talk the supreme court in our next segment beginning at 8:00 eastern.

asking you this morning, do you have friends or family with opposing political views? john in philadelphia, president trump supported. go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you for having me. this is probably one of the best questions you asked. in 2016, i had to delete my facebook page. around two years later, because of all of the rhetoric from the opposedt, whether you ,omething or his opinion separated people. then came family members who would just over talk you with donald trump, donald trump, this, that. dividing. division. more and more. i want to thank the media because i think with this

28, they on january china andicture of the army got out of the truck and attacked the woman for not wearing a mask, and that set me off that day. i don't know why it did not help the rest of america to go out and start stocking up for something that was coming that has not been fixed yet. we are going to have to fix the pandemic before we fix the division. story about the cdc from today's new york times. cdc director is challenged to stand up to a bully. they write, pressure is mounting on the cdc from inside and outside the agency to speak publicly against the white

house's manhandling of public health decisions with career help scientists so demoralized that they are talking of putting. the situation came to a boring point last week -- boiling point calledek when one person for the public director to stand up to a bully even at the risk of being fired. he said silence becomes complicity in an interview after a private letter he wrote to dr. redfield late to the news media. dr. redfield further and. of public health experts by issuing a memo released by the white house that cleared vice president mike pence to participate in the vice presidential debate even as the white house became a coronavirus hotspot. senator patty murray of washington said she told dr.

privateedfield in a telephone conversation that he had to take a stand. related story too, in the words , the. anthony fauci institute of allergy and infectious diseases, have made it into a trump campaign ad. [video clip] >> president trump has recovered from the coronavirus, and so is america. protecting our seniors, getting them life-saving drugs in record time, there is no expense. president trump tackled the virus had on. -- head on. we will get through this together. we will live carefully but not afraid. >> i am donald j. trump, and i approve this message. from twitter,

lizzie says, my sister and i have agreed to not talk politics. she is a democrat. i feel so sorry for her. i love her just the same. the decision we have made not to talk has worked well. this one, my children and i argue politics, but we move on to the next topic and kiss each other goodbye. i do not understand any family that lets politics to them apart. not discusso politics with three trump ist friends. many of these talking points are outright lies. robert is in florida and a joe biden supported. caller: how are you? host: fine, thank you. caller: i agree with these recent callers about family. family means a lot to me.

i have made that clear to my family. i had an incident with my brother. he and i are both blind. deteriorateed him over the last few years. that is a big bond between the two of us. trumpfive years ago when first came on scene, my brother, he is a republican, i am a democrat, in front of another person, he said to me that i was on the wrong side of the political spectrum, and so i made it clear to him that i would not argue politics, that i wanted to be friends. i made that clear. over the years, you cannot help it. we had a party about two years ago. my brother said in front of everybody, about 15 or 20 of us, he said you are a democrat, barbara.

that kind of hurts. i did not try to defend it. we got off the subject. i sent him a family means more to me than politics. i made that clear to people when we got into these discussions. my brother has gone up on me a few times when he has tried to discuss politics. tell him that family means more to me than anything. i love my family. i love my brother. i have two other siblings. i think this is the only approach you can have. you have to respect them and accept their views. they are not going to change. that is where we are. pence, to president events yesterday in the sunshine state. president trump will be in sanford, florida, just north of

orlando. we will have that rally live tonight. good morning. i just find this topic so spot on because in my situation i ,ived with three republicans and we shared accommodations due to work. newas always the lo democrat. the conversation with one person in particular, he said, you just do not like him because he is a republican. i had to plead the case that it i do not support donald trump just because he is a republican.

do you understand that you are mesmerized because you are focused on he is a businessman? he knows what he is doing. he is great, but you have not peeled back the layer's in layers and the questioned what is happening. we have learned to keep the conversations limited. i said to him, i am conservative in my own way as a registered democrat. me of not having any insight. i felt that -- i said to him, i can disagree with you, and we can disagree about politics, but you have to keep an open mind about the approach. discuss became not to

, and when i was away, out of the room, i let them have the floor, and we just kind of kept it level. one of the individuals came by, and the topic of politics came up. he said, i want you to know, i am not a bad guy, but i support donald trump because of my finances. this really has to do with my stocks and the money that i am making. all the things he has said about our intelligence and the other things that is not particularly politically correct, but my money is growing, and that is why i am supporting him. i thought it was interesting. we remain in contact.

we are still friends. there is a line where you have and decideery finely if you want to make your case and then except that people -- then accept that people tend to be mesmerized with the person that talks loudest and makes the most noise. reason, i tried to be very delicate. sharingpreciate you your expense. next we go to our growth in massachusetts. caller: good morning. i support donald trump because i

, and he loves this country he tries to do his best over blowback from everything he does. they talk about him not wanting to accept -- if he will accept the election results. later oris four years more, and they have not accepted his presidency yet. wayshey do is try to find to get him out of office. i find that the democrats are liars. i find that joe biden has been in politics for almost 50 years. what has he really done? what has he really done for anybody? host: tell us about your experience with friends and

family. are you the outlier in your family or group or do you have others? democrats,erals, they are so touchy. you cannot say anything. i have never brought up the subject of politics. they are the ones that bring it up because they think that my view is wrong. i do not even want to talk about politics with my family who are democrats because i find them to be crazy on the subject. you cannot have a rational conversation. host: here is a story from philadelphia, this headline, election stress disorder spreading across the u.s. as therapists worn anxiety worse -- anxiety worse than 2016.

stress levels have been skyhigh for months now. we have been dealing with the coronavirus since march. tensions have escalated in the last few weeks before the election. pretty zen about the whole situation, and then i watched the debates. that went out the window. i am getting a lot of emergency calls of resentment or anger." stress of her the election is causing many americans to fight with their spouses, friends, and coworkers. during the 20 election, he coined the term election stress disorder. florida,upporter in jim. go ahead. caller: hi.

my family is basically trump supporters, but we have some emails exchanged, rarely about politics. this is kind of an exception. our youngest nephew came out with really shocking statements about supporting joe biden that were so infused with ideological baloney that we were really very shocked. i came to realize that i fear for this country because the news organizations have a nearly evolved into lamp on the type of news that is put out on the broadcast channels, and even worse on some of the cable channels. these people are brainwashing the united states against a

president that has accomplished more than any president i can even think of. no matter how positive, no matter how material and important it is for this country, they do not hesitate to characterize it as something negative. inwere in a very dark period this country with the way that our president is being characterized. are opposing each other is because we have unbalanced news. it is the unbalanced nature of the news that is dividing this country. the press is dividing this country. if we just talked conversationally with each other, we could get along just fine. you what the press get in with their bias and the vicious

attacks on this president and the ideological nature of it, it is frightening. it is very frightening. it is amazing that people can overcome that and support donald trump as strongly as they do. just a reminder of our coverage this week, of the senate judiciary committee hearing getting underway tomorrow morning. .t is four days of hearings our coverage starting at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow on c-span, and a weeks worth of hearings. we will cover that live. family are all biden supporters, friends are all biden supporters. i recently purchased prodrug t-shirts, and i wore them -- pro trump t-shirts, and i wore them to see their reaction. they just laughed in disbelief.

we find it best not to speak about it. fromndecided line calling new jersey. caller: hi. good morning. host: good morning. caller: hello? host: you are on the air. go ahead. caller: i am calling because i have a very old friend, for years. -- 40 years. i said to her let's agree to disagree. she called trump hibbler, brain dead, a killer, xenophobic, racist. i will turn on one of the media, and they are saying the same exact thing. i have never called biden any bad names. hisd once asked if cognitive ability was there.

she hung up on me. i was flabbergasted. i was undecided. the pelosi got up and said 25th amendment, and that means if a president is unstable, they fit, ande he is not then harris would be our president? i was undecided, but then seeing amendment thing makes me a nervous wreck. host: biden maintains the nationally over president trump. -- lead nationally over president trump. president trump continues to trail joe biden by double digits , german down by distrust on the coronavirus pandemic. the president has not managed to duringhe gap with biden

the first presidential debate, the vice presidential debate, and president trump's hospitalization. the race has changed little over months with voters seemingly impervious to the flood of news. in silver springs, maryland. caller: good morning. when the election is over, how do we put our families and friends back together? i'm not sure if we will be able to. i don't think it is about the media. opinionsts have their in place long before a presidential election, especially one where the older voters in our country are taking the positions they are. when it is over, i am a 50/50

split. 50% of my family is red. 50% of my family is blue. host: looking ahead to that, what will you do? tongue inbite my personal conversations. i'm honest in my social media that i am a biden supporter. it did not start with trump. it started with president obama. was a clinton supporter. senator obama came along, and we decided it was a good choice, and it started. the right side started. i was shocked. some of the nicest, kindest, sweetest people in my family, friendship circles, became violent, purchasing guns, that

sort of thing. donald trump came along. it continued. not in a flat out fight with anybody in my family, but i have watched, especially the young ones, where the older ones will chide the younger ones, and the younger ones are angry with the older ones. we have always been a family that have enjoyed political discussion. we have always done it with courtesy and dignity. that is not happening now. host: appreciate that. may have a similar feeling about the headline. postslitical facebook straining your real-life relationships? you are not alone. victoria is a president trump supporter in west bend,

wisconsin. caller: i wanted to make a comment about the conversations i have held with people who are pro-biden. the common thread i have noticed throughout is i can list multiple reasons why i am voting for president trump. my husband and i voted for him in 2016. we were lifelong democrats. we just liked what he delivered. he has continued to deliver throughout the four years he has been in office. what we have noticed with people for biden is they can never list why they are voting for that candidate. they can only list why they hate trump. i do not understand the hate. i do not understand the evil hearts. if i post anything on facebook,

i am immediately attacked by people i have never seen or heard of before calling the racist. they do not know my history. they do not know my values or morals. just because i say i am for trump, automatically i am dismissed as bad. host: as that made you refrain from made you refrain from posting since that happened? i am strong in my conviction. i know what he stands for. i know what he has done for me personally and my husband who is a vietnam vet. i will share with you, my husband had a claim for disability because of his ptsd in the obama administration, it lay dormant for years. when the president came in and did a revamping of the v.a., the claim has been approved. i appreciate that. host: (202) 748-8000 more -- host: we will be joined by wall

street journal congressional reporter siobhan hughes. thewill be previewing hearings getting underway tomorrow for supreme court nominee judge amy coney barrett. that is next. later, we do a deep dive into the history and evolution of presidential campaign commercials with louisiana state police or -- louisiana state university professor robert mann. ♪ announcer: tonight at 9:00 p.m. directorformer cia john brennan speaks about his life and career in his book "undaunted: my fight against america's enemies at home and abroad." he is interviewed by julian barnes. >> some people have said you have gone too far for someone who has held a traditionally nonpartisan post like caa

director. have your felt like -- cia director. heavy felt to have gone too far? >> it is not just policy differences, although i have policy differences with the trump administration as far as iran. that is fine. i would not be speaking out so -- if it was just policy differences. it is his dishonesty, his corruption, his abuse of the office of the presidency. announcer: watch "book tv," on c-span2. announcer: tonight on "q&a," isabel wilkerson talks about her new book "cast: the origins of our discontent." x-ray ofolding up an the country so we can see what it is -- what is underneath our

divisions, what we call racism. there is this infrastructure of division that predates rates as a con -- race as a concept. race as a concept is a fairly new one. announcer: isabel wilkerson and her book. tonight at 8:00 eastern. announcer: the senate confirmation hearings for amy coney barrett victim -- begin monday. introduction of the nominee, followed by opening statements. watch live coverage on c-span, stream on c-span.org, or listen on the c-span radio app. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: siobhan hughes covers congress for the wall street journal.

with the hearings come up and the jute -- in the judiciary committee coming up, we have spent an hour talking about these four days worth of hearings siobhan hughes, welcome. how did these hearings compare with ones in the past given we are now operating under the pandemic. four days for the nominee. caller: four to -- guest: four days is about the standard for a lot of people who have been tuning into the supreme court nominations only recently, it might feel a little different. that is because the brett kavanaugh nominations were so contentious. it did go on for longer than normal. four days is about right. we will start monday with opening statements from senators. we will hear from a neat -- amy coney barrett. divebsequent days, we will into very intense questioning of her by the senators. finally, there will be an outside panel that the senators

will question. that is the format. that is standard. what is not standard is that we are operating in a pandemic. this is going to be a hybrid hearing. at the start, some senators are going to appear remotely. two of them have tested positive for coronavirus. mike lee and tom tillis. a thirdsalad -- senator, ted cruz, had interactions with mike lee, so it is unlikely he will participate in person. however, a lot of democrats have said they are going to show up in person in spite of their reservations about safety practices of republicans, some pre--- the supreme court nomination they say is too important to participate virtually. in large part because there can frequently be technical problems. snacks interrupt the flow. ist: senator lindsey graham, this his first hearing with the

supreme court nominee? guest: yes. that would be. in 2019, he is a new judiciary chairman. this is going to be the big time for him. however, it is not going to be his first big moment. fidemented his bona amongst the brett kavanaugh sneered aten he democrats, he said they had tried to destroy justice kavanaugh's life and he hopes they never get power because of what they would do with it. host: let me play feel the comments of lindsey graham. the most recent things we are hearing. on handlinganning the hearings beginning tomorrow. [video clip] askeduary 2019, i was what would you do if there is an opening? wasugust of this year, i asked by nbc if there is an opening on the supreme court,

what would you do? we will see what the market bears. i am going to lead the charge to confirm judge amy barrett to the court, and i can tell you this. if chuck schumer and democrats were in charge, they would be doing the same thing. we have had 19 nominations in an election year, 17 of the 19 have been confirmed when the president's of the same party as the senate. when it comes to democratic judges, give them a fair shake. -- i gave them a fair shake. comes to republicans, my colleagues want to destroy them. i am hoping this hearing does not turning -- does not turn into the kavanaugh debacle. we are moving forward. we are doing nothing unusual here in terms of how the senate operates. host: siobhan hughes, he hopes it won't turn into a debacle. what are some issues that could

come up with judge merrick that could be controversial? guest: probably the number one thing at this moment is roe v. wade. this is going to cut and a couple of different directions. democrats are likely to go on the attack against her out of concern that her personal views are going to seep into her rulings, should any roe v. wade issues come before the court. the big thing that has happened previouslye undisclosed advertisements, pro-life as -- pro-life advertisements have emerged. in one of the advertisements, roe v. wade is called barbaric. the statement is that life begins at fertilization. it says we oppose abortion on demand. those are already flags for democrats.

republicans, this is going to cut in another direction. republicans say democrats have an anti-catholic bias. democrats are essentially imposing a religious test and trying to ban anyone with catholic feelings from serving on the supreme court. the stakes are high. these are topics that sway a certain segment of the voting population. on that of senators diocese in that committee room are up for reelection. among them, lindsey graham. host: amy coney barrett is no stranger to the jewish area committee. she served -- the judiciary committee. recently confirmed -- tell us a bit about her. barrett isconey catholic. she grew up in louisiana in a close knit community. she attended law school at notre dame.

her big kid rental is that she was a law clerk to former justice antonin scalia a, a leading light of the conservative movement. like him, she has known as a textual list and an originalist. that means she views statutes on plain language. she does not try to read congressional intent. she interprets the contrast -- the constitution under her understanding. is importantogy because conservatives view it as a way to push back against decades of liberal activism. that, as an appeals court judge, she has taken some positions that lean conservative enough to believe she is going to take a conservative approach in her rulings, should she lend on the some pre--- should she land on this supreme court. she would be the youngest justice.

a mother of seven. universally, she is viewed as having the credentials for this position. also the temperament. unlike brett kavanaugh, she is unlikely to get into a shouting match with any of the senators. talkedeech she gave, she about how she was raised on the advice of her father. if you don't control your emotions, your emotions control you. she has extraordinary impulse control. i think you're likely to see that in these hearings. the: we are talking about confirmation hearings getting underway tomorrow for judge amy coney barrett. nominated to the supreme court by president trump. for republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. , (202)dents and others 748-8002. it sounded like she was really top of the list. that appointment was made quite quickly.

guest: she was the number one choice. has was clear, and trump said that she was under consideration a couple of years ago. trump passed on her on the notion that she was saving her for later. the ideas that she is a woman who is replacing ruth bader ginsburg. replacing another woman. tactically, this allows republicans to blunt any criticism that the party is anti-women. mold of ruths the bader ginsburg, her identity, she is nothing like ruth bader ginsburg when it comes to her politics. amy coney barrett has smoothly tried to smooth over this divide by pointing out that ruth bader ginsburg and her mentor, antonin scalia, were very close. they both shared a love of opera and were able to put their ideologies aside and have a real

personal relationship. host: let's get to calls. we go to san clemente, california. ron is on the republican line. caller: good morning. nice to have this discussion about the most important choices we are going to make for our country. most important thing, this is a lovely lady, no one can doubt that. she is beautiful and she has this lovely family, seven beautiful daughters and so on. my first question to her would ,e, as a friendly challenge miss barrett, how would you suggest to tell your daughters whether they can use birth control? i would be interested to know from a position, as a woman, which i am not, i would like to know whether she would suggest to her daughters, when they are

growing up, whether they should use birth control. this is an important part of society. changed everything for everybody. whether you are evangelical, catholic, or anything else, the pill is a big deal. host: siobhan hughes, has she addressed in rulings before, not just abortion, but family planning? tost: the interesting thing me about that question is that there is a supreme court case known as griswold that is a big deal. issue has to do with contraception. republican senator john kennedy had asked her about this in 20 during her confirmation. he asked her what she thought, basically there was a right to privacy in marriage.

dim yard.ett she would not comment on that case. take theeen careful to position that whatever her personal feelings are are not a matter for discussion in this form because what is that question is how she views the constitution. host: you brought this up too, you mentioned a moment ago, amy coney barrett tells the senate as infamous. wade she submitted this material to the judiciary committee. the ads sponsored by the notre dame faculty to support human life. what you think about the timing of that later coming in? -- that letter coming in? guest: republicans have said it is normal to amend your record. that ad was not produced until some outside reporting revealed

the existence of things like that. thatrats are likely to use as a way to suggest that amy coney barrett is perhaps covering up what her true intentions are. advertisements seem to be clarifying a lot of her legal writing. her legal writings give you her thought process, but they should -- they stop short on showing you how she would rule in a case. in missouri, the democrats line. caller: good morning. is a suppose that high moral character. is going to be seated in a stolen seat. i find that not such high moral behavior. question, thee nople that vote single issue

longer need to vote for trump. they don't have to hold their nose. he can't do anything more than pack the supreme court as much as he is doing already. back on the subject, if they were to overturn it, how many republican voters that only vote would they lose? thoughts? guest: this caller has put his finger on a crucial point. while republicans hope the roe issue is going to motivate ,onservatives to support them democrats are also calculating that it is going to drive away suburban women who were key in

the 2018 elections. pelosihat helped nancy in part between control of the house. someone like susan collins of maine is in a difficult position over this. at this point, she has said she is going to vote against any nominee should they come up before the election. this issue alone makes her challenge almost insurmountable. host: let's hear from greg. virginia. independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i wonder if you would be willing to speak to the viewpoints that this shows the supreme court has become too important. it shows the dysfunction in the legislative branch. not the years, they have been able to pass legislation on various issues, it has been kicked to the supreme court to make decisions because legislative people wouldn't

consider active judges. we are in a position where every time we nominate a member of the supreme court, it becomes this major issue when, in fact, it should not be. it should reflect checks and balances, separation of powers. the fact that it has come to that shows dysfunction in congress. hast: i think this caller crystallized the issue. certainly that is the way mitch mcconnell would see it. there is a reason he has focused over the past few years almost single-mindedly on putting conservatives on the courts for lifetime appointments. more than 200 trump appointees have been put on the courts. is confirmed,tt that would be three of nine trump justices. too,licans, and democrats see the supreme court as able to

set policy in a way that congress has simply been unable to do. host: the new york times writing about the hearings this week, democratsdline, " facing confirmation battle, fears feinstein is not up to the task." role in this her upcoming hearing? normally, dianne feinstein who is 87 years old, is the ranking member on the senate judiciary committee. she is already starting to play a more minimal role in terms of the democratic messaging. over the past week i'm of the democratic party has not put her out there at all to talk about any issues. to see likely republicans try to prod her, or intoast other democrats, reprising the line she had in 2017 when she told amy coney barrett something that

republicans said crystallized the democrat's anti-catholic bias. while dianne feinstein is not going to be stripped of her role as ranking member, you are seeing democrats take steps to minimize her. host: one of the democrats we have heard on the committee about the hearings is chris coons from connecticut. he joined us on washington journal wednesday last week. [video clip] in oure is no precedent history for the senate considering a nominee this close to a presidential election. more than half the states are already voting. others began today. i think it is irresponsible for us to be moving ahead with this nominee. we are going to come a long term, faced the challenges in terms of the legitimacy of the court given the circumstances in which this nominee is being damped through just-in-time to be in place to rule on any

decision that could affect the outcome of the election and rule on a decision that would deliver on -- deliver on president trump's incomplete promise to repeal the affordable care act. host: delaware senator chris coons. some issues of what he said, the legitimacy of the court after this nomination, and concerns therein. guest: chris coons is a delaware senator. he is very close to joe biden. this is a message that is essential for the democratic party. trump is rushing this nomination in order to install a justice in ways that totally go against their philosophy in 2016 when republican said that for a vacancy this close to the election, the american people should have their say. through the ballot. as, this is going to be message that democrats drive

hard this week. host: i am pushing this as a campaign issue president trump with the treat, "fdr's own party told them you could not pack the supreme court. now radical left democrats are pushing biden to do this." we will hear from james in memphis, tennessee. caller: good morning. [indiscernible] i think christie has all the right to nominate ms. barrett. i think the process itself is wrong. miss barrett would never get about -- never have got a vote through the senate if the senate was maintaining the vote threshold. [indiscernible]

all other justices before that past. they always have majority rule. court throughreme that, through this nomination. now, they -- [indiscernible] the only reason i say this is that if they would have left the -- like they would when antonin scalia passed away, if the republicans would have let the democrats have justice carbon -- [indiscernible] they would've had the nomination right there. it would have been a 5-4 court because the nation is split in half.

just doing it this way, making this -- all of this is political to me. host: all right, thank you. guest: the caller is right. so-calleda "post-nuclear world." you only need a majority to confirm supreme court justices. it is a reflection of the partisanship in the country. did it cause partisanship, or reflect it? at this point, it seems like it reflects it. of mitchit the intent mcconnell and lindsey graham to have her nomination voted on before the election? their it is a very much intention to have her nomination voted on before the election. roughly one week before the november 3 elections. there is a little democrats can do to stop it. the only thing that could conceivably get in the way, barring some surprise, is the

absence of republican senators due to coronavirus. insideay be sort of an question, is there any procedural move the democratic leader chuck schumer could pull tomorrow or this week that would delay the hearings? guest: no. there is no move democrats have. a price onpose republicans for going ahead commit maybe telling lindsay -- going ahead, maybe telling lindsey graham he does not have decorum to proceed, but the committee chairman is in charge of his own rules. host: let's hear from edith in oakland, california. caller: good morning. thank you so much. you make my day. i was in the journal for a long time. agree with justice ginsburg when she said the president is the president until the last date, and needs to

discharge his duty accordingly. theke what romney said, court was being -- for 40 years. not, they areare going to try to do with america like banana republic presidents get elected to. turkey. in judiciary, when they get power they need more power. i think this is abhorrent. i wish the wall street journal would shame the democrats and try to bring america to a banana republic. it is kind of true the arguments have slipped. in 2016, elizabeth warren and other democrats said it is the role of the senate to advise and advise and consent except for an election year.

is a case to be made that the argument parties make in filling vacancies in an election year depends on whether or not they have power. host: one more call. greensboro, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. i think it is so important to think about what the republicans are really doing regarding the supreme court. this is a time when so many people are hungry. they have no food. they have lost their jobs. rather than taking the next three weeks and getting a stimulus package to help the american people, republicans are focusing on the supreme court nomination. i think that really says a lot about what republicans are about. thank you. speaks to analler issue that is very much on democrats mind.

callousness in the priority of senate republicans at this moment. as the caller set, people around this country are suffering economically. there have been more than 200,000 deaths due to coronavirus. message does, what it send that at this moment when there is so much pain, the only senators in the capital right now are those who are rushing to confirm a new supreme court justice? host: in the hearing that begins tomorrow, you mention a couple of senators won't be there because they have tested positive for coronavirus. what will it look like? will there be an audience? will the media be in the room? guest: there will not be an audience. there will be some media in the room, but must -- much less than normal. it is going to be almost an empty hearing. very different from 2017 where you saw judge merrick, pham -- judge barrett, parents, family

,embers, lawrence silberman judge mcgann, you could see the force of people behind her. this is going to feel lonely, empty, sparse. host: siobhan hughes covers congress for the wall street journal. we appreciate you joining us to preview the hearings getting underway tomorrow. our live coverage on c-span. thank you so much. guest: good to be here. the first presidential tv presidential campaign ads aired during the 1952 campaign. "american history tv" and "washington journal" looks back at the history of political tv ads. we will be joined by robert man, author of "daisy petals and on the adsouds: lbj that changed politics." the first few of

television ads from the 1950 two campaigns from dwight adlai stevenson. [video clip] ike for president. ♪ you like like, i like ike. we don't want john, or dean or harry. you like ike, i like ike, everybody likes ike for president. with delay, go the other way. we all go with ike ♪ hang out the banner, bang the drum, will bring -- we will bring ike to washington ♪

>> now is the time for all americans to come to the aid of their country. >> ♪ >> ike. >> bob. >> i am so glad we are friends again. >> we agree on everything. >> let's never separate again. .> never again, ike >> bob. >> ike. >> bob. >> ike. happilyike and bob live ever after? is the white house big enough for both of them? stay tuned. ♪ think alike, with a general in the white house,

who will give the orders? ike -- ♪ joint production of american history tv on c-span3 and c-span's washington journal. author of "daisy petals and mushroom clouds." take a look at the history of tv political ads. professor mann, thinks are joining us. guest: roe good to be with you. 1952, thetart with first year television was used as a medium for political ads. been usedevision had a little bit in 1948 to broadcast the democratic convention. harry truman made a speech from new jersey at the latter part of the race. it was aired on regional television along the east coast.

timey, 1952 was the first you saw candidates advertising in a way that was not just a speech. even though we are going to see a lot of spots, these 30-60 second spots. 1952, 1956, 1960, the candidates saw television as a way to give speeches. and dwight stevenson eisenhower were airing some spot advertising. the vast majority of people who were seeing them, at least stevenson, overseeing the give 30 minutes beaches. minuteon gave 18 30 speeches on 10:30 at night on tuesdays and thursdays. candidates were very reluctant to do this kind of advertising.

they saw politics as being more dignified. they saw spots as the way you sell soup, soap and cereal, not lofty political ideas. host: we are going to see a lot of spots in the next hour and a half year with bob man. we welcome your calls, comments and questions. we open up our lines. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. , (202) 748-8002. host: it is fair to say both candidates in 1952, eisenhower and stevenson had to be pushed to do advertising, correct? guest: yeah. there was an advertising executive who was fairly prominent, famous for his innovations at the time, rosser reeves. he was hired by the eisenhower campaign to manage their

advertisements. at the time, eisenhower and his people thought it would be just speeches. reeves looks at one of eisenhower's speeches, i think his announcement speech, and came to the conclusion -- two major conclusions, eisenhower was a terrible speaker into these speeches were too complex and too long. people left without having an idea of what was about. eisenhower to do this spot advertising. major way that people were seeing eisenhower spots were not this animated jingles you saw, which is interesting. a lot of people enjoy watching it because it is recognizes -- most eisenhower spots were these 20 second eisenhower answers america where eisenhower just looks and the cameron answers questions from people off the

street. eisenhower thought it was humiliating. stevenson thought his thoughts were humiliating exercise that degraded the candidacy in the office. two quick questions about what we saw. ad fornkeys in that candidate eisenhower. kind of a negative in that regard. two, who is bobby echo -- who is bob? guest: the donkeys you see going backwards -- which as you point out is a subtle negative -- that is john's markman. democratic senator from alabama who was adlai stevenson's running mate. dean atchinson, secretary of state under truman who was reviled by conservatives and republicans.

bobhe other outcome of the robert, the bob was taft. leader of the conservative republicans. senator from ohio. son of president taft. eisenhower ran against taft. taft was his main opponent in 1952. to win taft's support, he promised he would some port his -- support his conservative agenda. greatats called that the surrender, eisenhower had surrendered to taft and now taft was controlling the nominee. the point is that they had fallen in love and taft has captured eisenhower. he is going to be the power behind the throne if eisenhower is elected. host: the title of your book, "daisy petals and mushroom clouds."

based on the daisy ad. let's go to that ad. 1964, lyndon johnson. we will follow that with ads from the goldwater campaign. [video clip] [indiscernible] 1 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, , zero. explosion] >> these are the stakes. to make a world in which all of god's children can live, or go into the dark. we must either love each other,

or die. announcer: vote for president johnson. the stakes are too high. ♪ >> swindled. juveniles only quincy. -- juvenile delinquency. crime. riots. hear what barry goldwater has to say about our lack of moral leadership. >> the leadership of this nation has a clear and immediate challenge to go to work effectively and go to work immediately to restore proper respect for law and order in this land, not just prior to election day either. is the's greatness greatness of her people. let this generation making new

for that greatness let this generation of americans set a standard of responsibility. announcer: in your heart, you know he is right. vote for barry goldwater. host: there is a lot there. start with the daisy add and tell us the tenor of the times. thank you for asking me to set the stage feared i think it is important to understand the atmosphere. we are still in the shadow of the cuban missile crisis. we are armored to the teeth facing the soviet union, which is also armed to the teeth. fearfult that time are that the soviet union and the united states, even though the cuban missile crisis had been resolved, we would still end up going to war and it would not be a conventional land war. it would be a nuclear war that would destroy the world.

comest environment goldwater, who has been a prominent leader of the conservative wing of the republican since the 1950's. a republican senator from arizona who is using a lot of dark language. announces the moonshot, goldwater tells reporters i am not interested in sending a man to the moon, i want to launch a missile to the kremlin. he calls the nuclear bomb just another weapon. he goes on television then suggests we should defoliate the ho chi minh trail using nuclear weapons. he made a lot of comments like that over the years that notested he was reckless, serious about the responsibility of being president when it came to using nuclear weapons. people already knew goldwater's position. that spot takes advantage. it is clever, it never mentions

goldwater because it did not need to. the people who created that spot realized all they had to do was give a story and let the viewers do the work, fill in the blanks with the knowledge and emotions. that is what makes it groundbreaking my clever. and effective. it put the viewers to work. did not give them a lot of information. it assumed they had a lot of information and used that in a clever way. host: is it correct the daisy add only ran once? guest: only ran once as a paid ad on september 7, 1964. in those days, there were only three networks. around 40,000,000-50 million people saw that. it was not unusual to move on to something else. did air on several

network news broadcasts in its entirety later that week. it started making news. coldwater people in the republican officials started to object. it made news, which ensured got a free ride. i am guessing between 70 million and 100 million people saw it. associatedways richard nixon with law & order, but it was barry goldwater's message. guest: that spot you saw is a distillation of a 30 minute documentary the goldwater campaign had created called "choice." they planned it as a paid political program on national television. --dwater saw it and decided he said it was racist. he stopped it from being run by the campaign. it did get run on regional

television, a lot of house parties. they did take the essence of it and distill it into this 32nd spot that tooknd advantage of anxiety over civil unrest. lyndon johnson, who had become president, was seen by a lot of republicans as having added and caused a lot of the moral degradation of the country. andcivil rights movement, there were not a lot of protests over the vietnam war at the time. all this unrest and an unsettled environment was growing and conservatives were scared. goldwater and his campaign were trying to take advantage of that with ad growing unease certain percentage of the population. host: we are looking at the history of presidential campaign tv advertising. a joint production with "washington journal."

we are welcoming your phone calls. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000. , (202) 748-8002. from twitter, michael says tv in its infancy are more reflect of the ads shown during theater intermissions. american culture was much more conservative than. his observation. 1952 through 1964, infancy is the right word to use. stuff, thedoing this politicians, were experimenting. they did not really know what they were doing. today, you would hire a political professional add firm that specializes only in producing political spots that relied on gobs of public opinion research. they just didn't know anything about that. these were mostly technicians

producing these. these are people who arranged the presentation of a 30 minute speech, or a four to five minute distillation. it was not until -- burn back, the madison avenue firm who got the account to do lyndon johnson's campaign that true advertising principles were brought to presidential campaigns. the reason i wrote my book is because this is the hinge moment in american political advertising when everybody thought this is how it is done. this is how you advertise political ideas. create spotsou that are interesting, clever, that put the viewer's information to work. not just a passive experience. if you look at the spots before can, 1968 and forward, you see there is a moment in time when everything changes. host: we go first to brent in

jacksonville, florida. caller: good morning. how are you doing? guest: good, thank you. caller: i had a question about the modern-day presidential commercials. it seems to me biden ran for president because of the fine people comments by president trump. he seems to run up to the line that he did not condemn white supremacists. that is always left out. -- doe i'm saying echo

you know what i am saying? your what are some of representations of modern-day ads compared to what we are seeing here in 1952? guest: it is a torrent of ads. they are targeted. saw964, the daisy add we was meant to be seen by -- aired mostly on national television. even then there were certainly sings -- swing states. they were just broadcasts. they were meant for almost everyone to see them. there were not targeted. today, what you see is a much more finally sliced electorate based on profiling and political polling that these candidates do. ad, especially online, that is usually an ad that was intended exactly for you. the person just like you.

it was not meant for your neighbor, maybe not your spouse. it was meant for you personally because either your shopping havey or or buying behavior or registration, where you live. these are much more finally targeted to people -- it does not mean they always hit the main --t that is the other than stylistic differences -- that is the main difference in advertising today before -- then before the invention of the internet. host: john in mechanicsburg, pennsylvania. , looking at curious history, 19 61, president kennedy did a speech at the waldorf-astoria. during that same era, you had the edward r. murrow folks talking about the media and its value to society. both speeches talked about how the media was not used properly to educate the american people about the issues of the day.

i am curious about the speaker's thoughts. he has done research. were those men right? for kennedy and murrell right when they said we are not using television to educate? just to amuse? even in the realm of political ads, it seems that is where we have gotten to. providing useful, helpful education to the american people. just curious what the guest thinks. host: thanks. guest: that is a good question. i would not say they were right, but prescient. miduld say in the early to 1960's, the advantage i think that there was an advantage and a disadvantage. you may not have had access to different sources of news. there were three networks. you may be had a couple of local newspapers. radio news. there were generally agreed upon facts that every american understood. if something happened, every

american had the same basic understanding of that. you may think that it is good or bad, it was the way it was. do not have now, i to belabor this point, but we are a totally fragmented society depending on your political views or your lifestyle. you're getting your news in one way from your neighbor who is getting his or her news and another. commonly widely agreed-upon fact about anything. we are working our silos. we don't talk to each other. we are not hearing the same thing. we are not talking about the same thing. personally, i am not sure that is a good thing. but, it is what it is. i think kennedy was prescient. maybe they saw what was coming come over maybe they were criticizing something that they did not intesa pate. -- that did not anticipate. host: north chicago, illinois.

caller: good morning. this question has to do with the rules and ethics of political campaigns. historically and up until present day, is there a commission or set of rules that campaigns must follow to make are doneaign ads outside of slander? guest: excellent question. in the 1960's, there was a federal commission, the fair election practices commission, there was a nonpartisan commission that did not have a whole lot of teeth, but it could make judgments and pronouncements. it could declare that his spot was unfair, or embarrassed to candidate into removing an ad.

prevailing rules since the advent of television have been the federal elections commission and the principal in our constitution that political speech is the most highly protected form of speech. candidates have generally been able to say whatever they want to say. in their ads. cannot -- stations this goes to broadcast television -- cannot censor those. they can't tell them you can't say that. candidates are mostly governed by the judgment of voters. if i say this, it is not that it is wrong or illegal, it is will the voters react horribly? honestly the main check that candidates and of the candidate committees, not

third-party committees under different roles, but candidates can pretty much they would they want. calls --our host: more of your calls momentarily in this joint production on the history of television campaign ads in presidential races with professor robert mann. let's move onto two ads from the 1968 campaign. [video clip] ♪ announcer: it is time for an honest look at the united states. ingredientecessary of change, but in a government that provides peace through change there is no cause that testifies violence. -- justifies violence.

the first civil right of every american is to be free from domestic violence. i pledge to you, we shall have order in the united states. [laughter] ad, the the nixon tagline was very reflective of the ad that ended the goldwater. strong statements. guest:. the goldwater statement, i tell

my students that is a great example that you ought to focus group your slogan, your tagline. it did not take the johnson campaign five minutes to respond , -- the rejoinder in your guts you know he's nuts. [laughter] those taglines were really big in those days. reflection to the sense that republicans and conservatives felt that the world was crumbling apart. traditional conservatism. the desire for order. law and order has been a way of expressing that for a very long time. host: one observation on that tagline on twitter, cynthia says heart you know he's right becomes suburbs under threat 2020." onto the laughing man ad.

did people get that? guest: yes and no. it is in the same spirit of the daisy girl added that it is using knowledge and information, emotions that voters -- or is trying to -- that voters already have. they are expected to do some of the work. of october 1968 was certainly not the agnew of 1974. there were questions about agnew's behavior, ethics, morality. agnew was already making statements that were mildly embarrassing to the republicans. he was unknown. he was largely unknown. a way of ridiculing, calling him a lightweight or an unknown. i think that spot probably ifld've had more residents

it had run in 1972 or 1974 than 1968. host: from robert in clearwater, florida. how much did a commercial cost in the 1950's and 1960's? guest: excellent question. if you were going to -- it depended what show you were running it in. a lot of it depended on production costs. one example that i know, the daisy girl. around $25,000 to buy the time on nbc to run it for a minute. it probably cost another $10,000-$20,000 to produce. i can't remember what that would be in 2020 dollars, but it was not cheap. it is still not cheap to buy omitted of time on network

television. it is very expensive. that is why you do not see a lot of network spots because they are expensive, not targeted. justice ginsburg: -- i was puzzled, looking back, so much has changed since the early days. the media plays a role, and the news was much less opinions and just had newspapers and television and radio things. i love the advertisements, but i keep in mind they are advertisements. now with a social media, how many people do think are really affected by these advertisements? 's are they worth the money that is spent on them? until thehanged

1960's when they started until now? guest: that is the question. booki started out with the on the daisy girl spot, thinking that was the spot that destroyed very goldwater and what i found was that it did not. it had little impact because goldwater, before that spot aired, he was going to lose the race and after it aired and a whole flight of other very rough spots, the johnson campaign campaign aired, goldwater was still cruising to lose. he lost by a historic margin at the time. my thinking and today, the spots are not as effective or determinative as you might think. 3-5% ofw there is maybe the people out there are undecided. these candidates are spending millions of dollars at a very

small percentage of people, many of whom may not vote at all. most decisions have been made. i think most people are impervious to this. candidates have been doing this for time immemorial could i think a lot of campaigns do it because they do not know what else to do now. , i think they do make a difference. voters doases many not have a lot of information about the candidates. the newspapers are going out of business. a lot of the information that voters get today is not from the media, but from the commercials paid i think that is sad, but i think they have more impact down the line then they do at the presidential level. robert, i have several

questions. bidendvertisement that ran in the last segment about blaming trump for all of the coronavirus deaths, which he did the best he could. he did much better than biden would've ever done. he refers to how many empty chairs there is at the table, but i wonder how many of chairshairs are high that the democrats are putting at the tables. another thing about the courtement of the supreme justice -- the: we are focusing on history of presidential campaign tv advertisement spirit we go next to washington, the democrat line.

caller: hello. good morning. commercial,that when you show that this money, it took me back to when i was seven years old. , not the first part of it of course, but the second part. i always wondered why i was so scared of nuclear war. this is the most important question, and i do not know if you can answer it, but seems like during the 1970's it did not use to have to be like when johnny carson and all the others what am i trying to say? trump anderson, like biden were running, didn't they have to have two end at the same time? one could not have more time than the other one on tv?

equal time is i think what she is referring to. guest: that is one of the reasons why we did not have debates between 1960 and 1976, but -- because of that doctrine. at least lyndon johnson did not want to debate very goldwater so he would've insisted on every third-party candidate being on stage. , having a factor politicians on for interviews like on johnny carson. nixon was going to come on, so you had to give equal time to hubert humphrey. we do not have that anymore because we recognize these news organizations can use their judgment. most people are pretty happy with giving media the ability to make that decision then having the federal government imposed on both sides a certain time that they have to be on the air. host: about the issue of

advertising from bob in tennis phil. he says at some point later on with the guest compare the advertisements to advertisements over the same time? caller: that is interesting. i think -- guest: that is interesting. i think the product advertising always leads the way. i think that is because -- i have thought about this a lot and i have decided bars of soap cannot talk back to the advertising executive. politicians can and do and they tend to be liberals and conservatives, tend to be very whenrvative they small c it comes to the kind of messages and tactics they are willing to use on television in their advertisements. that is why both adlai stevenson

and dwight eisenhower were hesitant to do advertising in 1952. they do not want to do something that is undignified. knownk if you want to where political advertising is going, sometimes, if you see where product advertising is today, that may be where political advertising is in a few years. host: we are talking about presidential campaigns and tv .dvertisements with robert mann american history tv is on every weekend on c-span3, 48 hours of history. 1980,move on to the year jimmy carter running for reelection against ronald reagan. here is a look.

[video clip] >> when it comes time to decide something, president carter must decide alone. no many how many advisors, a president can never escape the responsibility of understanding the issue himself. that is the only way a presidential decision can be made in the only way this president has ever made one. president carter. i deeply resent and am offended by the attacks that carter has made on my husband for his attempt to paint my it hed as a man he is not is not a warmonger, not a man who will throw the elderly on the street and cut off social security. that is a terrible thing to do or to say about anybody. there are many issues that are

important in this campaign. i would like mr. carter to explain why the inflation is as high as it is, quite an appointment is as high as it is. i would like for him to explain the foreign policy our friends overseas do not know what we are going to do, whether we're going to stand up for them or whether we are not. this campaign is his three and a half year record. >> the time is now for strong leadership. host: my first observation on the jimmy carter advertisement, the room is dark and the advertisement is dark. he got a fair amount of pushback from using the oval office in a political campaign. did he not? guest: absolutely. that was not something that was seen then or now as proper, using the white house as a stage for a political spot.

trump get some criticism for the events that he is held at the white house as if this is the first time it has been done. jimmy carter did it, and there was another spot he aired that year in which it showed him on air force one. there was another that carter aired in which he was sitting at his oval office and appearing to be praying, about his faith and it should like it look like he was bowing his head at the oval office. not we are seeing now is exactly new. reagan, i was struck that i was reminded that she was an actress. that was her career. she spoke on camera. first potential appear inst lady, to

an advertisement? guest: i think she was the first one speaking in an advertisement. lyndon johnson aired a spot that had him standing next to lady bird returning to andrews air force base after the assassination of president kennedy. it is the first time i'm aware of that the wife is actually speaking and not just speaking to talk about how wonderful her clever use oft a the candidate's wife to attack the other candidate, which kind of softens the blow. saying ronald reagan jimmy carter is attacking us and it is unfair and then she quickly sort of pivots to attacking jimmy carter. was a sense that they could be seen as protesting the attacks and attacking back

but doing it in a soft way. nancy reagan was an actress, and the other thing that i think is effective, she is not reading from the teleprompter. she is just talking. when he see spots for the asdidate is just conversing opposed to reading the teleprompter, i think those are more effective because they seem more genuine. message, her criticism is a policy criticism of vacillating foreign policy. she talks about ignoring our allied interests overseas which has some reflection of the current tone of this campaign. guest: that is the thing about the spots when you start going spotso eisenhower, those , you wouldun in 1952 be got smacked about how the

themes from the earlier campaigns are still the themes we are talking about today. the degradation of our standing across the world, what we are talking about today are not old issues. it is the same old clothes, just different people wearing them. host: we will go to the phones now from delaware. anna from the republican line. about joem talking biden being on the television. i am so sick of it. i called the cable company and told them i wanted my money back. sit downears old and i to watch television and all i see is joe biden. trump, they talk about his wife getting killed -- getting covid, and they found

out that another one of his sons had cancer -- democrats linee from westin, virginia. caller: i want to put something out, how much money is going to all of these networks and various stations. that weof this money are donating to these campaigns is basically going to all of these companies paid it is ridiculous, and it is so much money but i feel like there must be a better way to do this with some sort of a type of thing with shared time. i could not agree more. i think you are right. i have not done it this year with one of my classes, but four years ago i took the

battleground states and looked at the undecided was in the polls and then took, money the campaigns were spending in those thees to influence undecided. you look at the costs, how many hundreds of millions of dollars spent to influence the small slice of the electorate. philosophy ismy if you are undecided at this point and there is an incumbent running, you are and decided between the challenger not voting at all. you have already made your mind up mostly about the incumbent. i think campaigns would be smarter to be putting that money into organ is icing -- organizing. there is the problem, because most of this money is raised in the last few months of the campaign. they really need it back in april and march to do the kind of work that you would need.

million three10 weeks before the election, there's really only one thing you can do with it and that is advertising. host: this is from michael in portland, that says he has two of robert's books and recommend him to everyone. has the guest seen a daisy commercial of comparable power in this election, and if not, why not? power, i would argue that the daisy girl spot was powerful not because it changed a lot of votes, although i think it solidified some against goldwater. i think that spot was powerful mainly because it changed the way we thought about political advertising, the methods. it revolutionized advertising. maybe, say no because

that morning in america spot that ronald reagan ran, that spot is comparable in some ways but i would not say it revolutionized advertising. i and not sure there's anything to compare it. host: 1984, you are teeing it up. let's look at this. [video clip] women gomore men and to work than ever before, with interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly 2000 families by new homes. families will buy new homes. 6500 men andn,

women will be married and they can look forward with confidence to the future. it is morning again in america. under the leadership of president reagan, our country is stronger and better. why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four years ago? ♪ >> there is a bear in the woods, for some it is easy to see. others do not see it at all. .ome say the bear is tame others say it is dangerous. since no one can really be sure who is right, isn't it it's smart to be as strong as the bear? if there is a bear.

♪ host: going back to the morning in america, the guy who did that spot, he may have done campbell's soup and everything at the time, a very familiar voice over guy at the time. and that spot combined the music , it seemed to have everything that it needed. it really did, one of the best spots.

i have not looked at the polling, but i think you could .rgue that was truly effective it certainly confirmed, it was made to confirm the feeling that people had at the time that things were better and they were reagan'scause of policies. certainly not everyone would have argued that was the spate of the country in 1984, but that sort of summarize the zeitgeist of the time and i think reinforced feelings that things are moving in the right direction. it was a beautiful spot. it goes to what i was saying about using these medicine avenue techniques. -- madison avenue techniques. there was a documentary i compared that to a pepsi ad, using the same techniques. that morning in america spot is really the culmination of the

marriage between washington political advertising and madison avenue. host: and the teacher children spot, some echoes to the daisy ad of 1964. was this one of the first time that a music group gave permission for a to use what was then a hit song? music was clearly from the beginning, i am not aware of use aher spot that did very widely recognized popular song could i may be wrong. nixon campaign is a lot of music and its spots, but i think this is the first time that you saw a popular rock group having its music used like that. host: this is doug from alaska.

caller: good morning. i was wondering, wasn't till moyer associated with the daisy ad? i remember when i first read that, i was shocked, but now it is obvious that most television journalists are not only members of the democratic party but strongly associated with helping the party. he was one of the most trusted aides that lyndon johnson had and did not become a journalist until after he left the white house. he was involved in the daisy girl add. that spot was produced by the madison avenue firm which is still a prominent advertising firm. they produced that spot and

brought it to the white house to show to johnson and his people. i believe bill was there and the night it showed on television, johnson starts getting calls from friends who were reacting to it. some of them reacted negatively. rs's call to the second floor of the white house, and johnson makes quite a production of dressing him down about the spot and telling him to look into it. he turns and goes back to the elevator. johnson follows him to the elevator and says, you think you really ought to one -- when it wants? johnson eyes recognized it was a good spot. in on the have been decision to tell the company not to air it again but he had really nothing to do with the creation. minnesota,up from

the democrat line. caller: good morning. i wanted to comment, i guess i'm old enough to remember how 1964. were back in daisy adr in 1964, the , it was effective, but it was really accurate. goldwater was very radical about the use of nuclear weapons and also a racist, which people do not bring up. but he was, he voted against the 1964 voting rights act and the civil rights act. he was a known racist.

it worked knew it and in the southern states. many of the people in the democratic party switched with thend aligned southern republicans. on, the next go around with nixon and agnew, that advertisement about agnew, he had serious problems that i do not remember all of them, but it was pretty well known and that is why that was so effective back then. yes.: his point about 1964, there was a lot of knowledge in the voters minds about goldwater. it was not a secret. he was one of the few

republicans who voted against the civil rights act. his campaign thought they would make the campaign about that in the beginning. they thought they would focus on that. in their research they came up with the conclusion that much more effective was the american fear about the united states going to war with the soviet union. what originally was going to be spots attacking goldwater over spots thats became attacked goldwater on the issue of nuclear war, his opposition to the nuclear treaty. i think they probably were right, it was a more effective advertisement, message to put forth because voters were much more aware of where goldwater

stood on nuclear war than they were of where he stood on civil rights. albert if he from says please take into account that many did not even own televisions at the timeframe and discussed. what was the saturation, how ,ifferent was the saturation sate in 1952 versus where we are in the 1980? guest: they about 50 million homes with televisions in them, about 50 million televisions. every home mostly had one television. in 1964 or 1968, every home had a television. it was total saturation. even today the people who do not have televisions, but in those days, all you had to had -- had to have was a television. you did not have to pay for cable.

easier to see this because so many people live in rural areas and they maybe do not get the kind of reception. people were not paying for it in those days. host: but we are glad they are paying for it now. on american history tv on c-span3, we welcome our viewers. this is a 90 minute special focusing on the history of presidential campaign ever ties months with our guest. more of your calls momentarily, but let's move ahead to the 1988 race, george h dubya bush and michael dukakis. the deathpports penalty for first degree murders . dukakis allowed first degree murders to have weekend passes from prison. ae was willie horton, despite

life sentence, horton received 10 weekend passes from prison. couple,idnapped a young and we can present passes, dukakis on crime. george bush talks a lot about prison furloughs, but he will not tell you that the rest to choose this program was started by republican. bush will not talk about the thousands of drug kingpins furloughed while he led the poor on drugs. he will not talk about one of his furloughed hair one dealers who raped and murdered a mother of two. the real story about furloughs is that george bush has taken a furlough from the truth. host: who was behind the infamous willie horton ad? guest: that was produced by a third party political that was closely

aligned with the republican party called national security pac. , the bushs taken off campaign immediately went on the air with a much more polished the wholeattacked furlough program in massachusetts and showed a revolving door, these people going in and out, look like in and out of the prison could it mentioned willie horton and he was not the only figure discussed in that spot. a lot of people confuse the two. they think the first spot was a bush advertisement. it was clearly some sort of either unspoken or spoken coordination between the campaigns because they were aligned. i think it is fair to say that it is worth pointing out that

whole furlough program was first raised earlier in the year in the primaries in a debate in new york. al gore raised at first, and then republicans picked it up. that the republicans use imagery in their ad, didn't they? guest: that is one of those things that i always found a little curious. nancy reagan did it. it is one of the principles that a lot of communicators try to tell their candidates, do not repeat the charge. campaign --cus dukakis campaign was a really poorly run campaign in so many ways. waited way too long to respond. you see those spots juxtaposed showings like one spot

the voters and then another spot , it was several weeks before he figured out how to respond. that was sort of the story of the whole campaign. they looked at reportedly 1000 different scripts before the fall campaign ran. nimblest were not as which is why a 1992 use of bill clinton institute a warm room to respond quickly to these kind of charges. really never recovered from the spots that bush ran against him attacking him for his opposition to for example the death penalty. voice. recognize that newman.arry people who did these ads, either the artists or the actors, did they ever find a disadvantage in terms of them being labeled as one political party or the

other? guest: i have not heard of anybody in labeled as one party or another. it may be the case. , would like to point out talking about voiceovers, back to the beginning of the program when we showed that spot from 1952, both voices in that spot blanc.l the other spot, the i like ike, that was produced by roy disney. there are examples of prominent doing or aree involved in the spots that may do not get the credit they deserve and they probably don't want it. they are just voice actors and generally doing it or the paycheck, not going out and finding a republican voice actor or democratic voice actor.

they're looking for a particular kind of voice, but not the person who agrees with the politics. host: this is the independent line. caller: good morning. [indiscernible] host: i am sorry. you are breaking up. maybe try calling back in. ohio.p this is rocky from caller: i just wanted to make a statement in regards to the use of the moneys that the democrats get for these commercials. , givenuld be better used the people who are without the moneys, so they could live a decent life like it is supposed

to be. that is all i have to say. god bless you. host: any further response? guest: the thing is, we spend a lot of time talking about how much money is spent on these advertisements. for anylot of money family, but it is a fraction of what coca-cola spends every year on advertising. when you look at the total budgets some of these major corporations, the amount of money spent on advertising across the board, the amount of political advertising is a drop in the bucket. what makes it seems like it is so if seen is that it is mostly compressed and the last six weeks of the campaign. by the time election comes along, you feel like you've seen

nothing but political advertisements. they are concentrated in the last few weeks of the campaign. it magnifies, i think the voters minds, how much money is being spent. it is really not that much. viewers onlcome our the u.k. and our partnership with the dbc channel in this final hour of the program. this is dennis. caller: good morning. having successfully fought against republican voter suppression in florida both in 2000, it always seems like the republicans suppressing the vote. have you ever seen evidence of the democrats trying to suppress it? guest: you should be a voice actor, first thing i want to say. you should consider narrating a spot. that is a good question.

what you see right now and what you've seen of the last 20 years are republicans pushing, talking integrity.t it is republicans mostly talking about that not democrats. i think it is because of the generally agreed, maybe not accurate, but the agreed supposition that the more people who vote, the better it is marginally for democrats. democrats tend to turn out more in big elections. i need these elections that will margins, all small of these tactics come into play. for political advertising comes -- there is a sense that i think is been around in political science for a long

time, i think it is fallen into disfavor, that negative advertising depresses the turnout for the more we can make the campaign negative, as nasty as possible, people will be turned off. there is this sense that republicans and some democrats would want you to be discussed -- disgusted and walk away. most candidates just really want to attack the other side to gain advantage. it used to be seen for a long time as a suppression tool. host: a question to you from carl from michigan. can you comment on the ad as brand awareness and reinforcement versus branding the opponent by going negative? medianteresting that the is the enemy of the state. billions of dollars prompted to forwards areose

typically dashboards are typically conservative. and sounds like i'm these newsng myself, organizations are happy to have the money and there is a lot of .t i am not alone diminishing the impact of the money especially to the organizations and the local stations that love having the money. living in a swing state and you are seeing a bunch of political ads, you're probably not seeing as any for trial lawyers and car dealers. you will start seeing those on november 4 and maybe get sick of those. host: he was talking about the difference between branding going versus going negative and attacking the brand. guest: that is a great question.

i think we will see in the next think we willi see in 2000 we will see this spot that al gore ran, and i 2004.we will see one from it used to be common that candidates would run these spots. bush ran one in 1988. it sort of introduced himself to the voters, sort of brand myself. you do not see those so much, and i think it is because by the time the election occurs, everybody knows who these candidates are. they have been branding themselves all year. , it is stilllevel very common to see these bio

-spots. empty opposition -- and the opposition, bill clinton did this to bob dole, he started early in the year, earlier than attack spotssing against bob dole to try to brand to himself.e did it is our history of presidential campaign advertising with our guest from louisiana state university, robert mann. 1992, the 1992 race. [video clip] >> i was born in arkansas. i remember the old house where i lived with my grandparents. they had limited income. it was in 1963 that i went to washington and met president

kennedy. what aner just thinking incredible country this was that would be givene the opportunity to meet the president. that is when i decided i could do public service. i worked my way through law school with part-time jobs read after i graduated i did not care about making a lot of money. i just wanted to see if i could make a difference. we have worked hard to create jobs and we have made progress. it is exhilarating to think as president i could help change lives for the better and bring hope back to the american dream. >> i do not believe him one bit. >> he tells everybody what they want to hear. >> he just wants to spend more money. the only place he can get it is from the taxpayer.

i did know how we can take anymore taxes. >> who is the best qualified person up here on the stage to create jobs? make the decision and vote. i suggest you might consider somebody who has created jobs. who is the best person to manage money? pick a person who has successively done that. who is the best person to get results? look at the records and make your decision. who would you give your pension fund in your savings to to manage? who would you asked to be the trustee of your estate to take care of your children if something happened? god bless you. i want you to have the american dream.

i ame american people, doing this because i love you. that is it. this is the least slick advertisement we will see and what we are showing today. my favoritemay be because it is so unproduced, intoof pure ross perot your living room. i really like it. i do not think it was an effective prey to some people might look at it and say it was unpolished. hisaptured his essence, plainspoken-ness. and the man with hope advertisement. guest: that to me is a

masterpiece. distillation of a 15 byute film that was produced a successful hollywood television producer with several designing women, very popular shows at the time. she and her husband were good friends with the clintons. they produced this spot and it was shown at the democratic convention in new york in 1992. it was electrifying. it was effective because here is clinton, this graduate of , who for aand yale lot of people thought he was a child of privilege, that he had grown up in wealth. this was designed to show he came from the heartland, from

modest means. .e was one of us the most electrifying part of that spot is here is clinton talking about himself as the bridge between camelot, between kennedy and the new party. you literally have him shaking hands and the rose garden with kennedy. it was an electrifying moment. it was not just a rhetorical connection that he had. it was physical. i think it was one of the best spots. the 15 minute spot is really a masters piece -- masterpiece. it is a beautiful piece of advertising. back to theget calls.

this is tom from maryland on the democrat line. caller: hello. thank you for coming on. i was interested in the bush advertisement you showed up willie horton. it reminds me of how bush ran largely to extend eggen's him -- reaganism. i think ronald reagan created , and my question is has his message become less effective as a form of propaganda with the trick seek campaign? how do you think this connects with the average white motor these days as opposed to back in the 1980's? bush was mostly effective in doing this because dukakis was an apt and responding.

i think there probably were better ways to respond, certainly quicker ways than he did. he was just flat-footed. the most effective use of that law and order is when it is a challenger critiquing the , sornance of the incumbent that nexen effectively challenging, portraying the world under a lyndon johnson democratic presidency. i think it is probably less effective for the incumbent to be saying that if you elect me, that if you elect my opponent you will not have the conditions you have. it is a hard argument to make and i think that is probably why it has not been effective for the president. in westis is bradley virginia on the republican line. caller: i was kind of

disappointed that you skipped the 1976 election with ford and carter. they had to face election in two years, so there foreign policy was restricted, it had to take a backseat to domestic policy and the election. , what did youg have to say about the 19 sit -- 1976 campaign? campaign, that was interesting. that was a rough campaign. knowing how those two candidates became very good friends later on in life and jimmy carter to billows -- delivers his eulogy, you would never imagined that

would be possible when you see the spots they were using. jimmy carter is basically planning against the corruption of the richard nixon sortistration, promising, of tying him to gerald ford and promising a new start. and i think if we had more time, we would want to show the spot that jimmy carter ran anchoring himself in the heartland values of georgia, showing him on his peanut farm, his hometown. they were effective spots but i think they were more so very effective at framing carter as a total break from this corrupt republican administration. as you pointed out, we were barely two years since richard nixon had resign in disgrace. host: as a reminder, you can read his book about the entire

and we cannot get to everything but that's get to the 2000s here are some of the ads in that campaign of george bush and al gore. [news clip] 1969, america in turmoil. , when he comes home from vietnam, the last thing he thinks he will ever do is enter politics. he starts a family and becomes a reporter. then he decided that to change what was wrong in america, he had to fight for what is right. he ran for congress. the environment his cause. he fought to reform welfare. his fight now is to ensure the prosperity of our families, not

just a few. companies, hold schools accountable, tax cuts for working families. 30 years,arried fighting for us. >> prescription drug prices have skyrocketed, and george bush has a plan. >> every senior will have access to drug benefits. opposed bipartisan reform. plan,re prescription bureaucrats this guide -- decide. out thatwas pointed advertisement has a subliminal message. you see the flash, but it is

called the rat advertisement. tell us why. guest: the word bureaucrats, this is about health care, prescription drug plans, not one andt -- it is positive negative, but when the word for one third up, of one second, it is enlarged and you just see the last few letters, rats. ite viewers somewhere saw and alerted, somebody in the press or the campaign that this thing had shown rats. then there was this brouhaha about whether the bush campaign had implanted a subliminal message.

they were people who will have an argument over whether those kinds of messages work, but whether it was intentional. guess at thiss point. for one third of a second, it's hard to imagine anybody would have noticed it. the idea was that no one would notice it consciously but unconsciously you would say that democrats were rats. allen from new jersey on the independent line. caller: good morning. i do not mean to throw a wrench into the program, but i think there is an elephant in the room this morning. advertising done and paid for by candidates and that is always a tagline on the advertising.

but we have the biased journalists on the air for hours and hours at a time and nobody tells us who approves them being on the air. they pay for the airtime. is an interesting study in this. i have been a dedicated c-span watcher since back in the 1970's . the situation with steve scully -- host: the company has addressed this issue, and made plain that steve scully and his twitter account was hacked. yes, he served as an intern in the biden and the kennedy offices 40 years ago, like thousands of other students in this country. he was an intern back then. i suggest that you take a look at the range of his work in the course of his career here.

if you look at the video library you will find thousands of instances of the range of his coverage. account was hacked and he will be back on the air here before long. to kevin from nebraska on the democrat line. caller: first of all, thank you for your excellent presentation this morning. i was wondering, i know traditionally that campaigns start after labor day. with this continuing trend towards earlier balloting, is that legislated or regulated and is there a chance it might move earlier in the year to be more effective? guest: great question. i think it has change the way the candidates are campaigning

what the worlds were look like four years from now, but if the trend is toward earlier voting, then i think sadly if you are not a fan of political campaigns, you will see a longer political season. traditionally, i mean the campaigns, if you live in a swing state, you put up with a year of this. nationally if you're just watching some of the national spots, you probably are not seeing those in any great number until the last six weeks of the campaign. regardless, if you are living in a place like florida or ohio or michigan or wisconsin, you will be seeing spots like this all year. host: let's see if we can get to the 2004 ad before we wrap up. [video clip] >> i was born in colorado.

oath of my parents taught me about public service -- i am listed because i believe in service to country. i thought it was important that if you had a lot of privilege to go to a great university to give something back to the country. he made savedns our lives. he rest his life to save mine. look at my father's time in service to this country, whether it is as a veteran or prosecutor, he has shown the thatty to fight for things matter. >> we are a country of optimists. we just need to believe in ourselves again. a lifetime of service and strength, john kerry for president. they have personally raped

and cut off the ears and heads -- that theyusations made against the veterans was devastating. and it hurt me more than any physical wounds i had. >> blown up bodies. >> that was part of the torture to sign a statement that you had committed were crimes. kerry gave the enemy for free but i and many of my comrades took torture to avoid saying. it demoralized us. >> he betrayed us. how can we be loyal to him now? he dishonored the people he served with. he sold them out. in the 2004 campaign,

famously that last one called the swiftboat ad, what was the origin of that? was a spot that was run by this organization called veterans for truth that was a whom of veterans, many of had harbored ill will against john kerry since 1971 when he testified against the vietnam war before the senate. campaign, and his campaign was built around his winning the bronze star and the purple hot -- purple heart. this third-party group, not associated with the bush campaign become ends these advertisements to attack and undermine the ability of his won these.t how he

that quickly became an issue in the campaign paid it is a great example of how a third-party organization, using -- can run some and how it ballooned into a major campaign issue generating a lot of money and becomes a centerpiece of the campaign. bush was down five points when those spots begin every in august of 2000. those spots destroy john kerry's campaign. host: i wish we had more time. much for spending time with us this morning. guest: thank you. it was a lot of fun. host: a reminder, if you missed any of the conversation with robert, it re-airs tonight on presidential campaign at 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. eastern on american history tv on